Amazon plans to cut about 16,000 jobs globally as part of efforts to streamline its operations.
The latest major round of lay-offs at the retail technology giant, confirmed in a blog post to staff, comes only three months after it axed around 14,000 jobs.
It is understood that the majority of jobs impacted by the latest cuts will be in the US, but the UK operation will see some jobs axed.
The company did not disclose how many UK workers will be affected.
Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, wrote: “As I shared in October, we’ve been working to strengthen our organisation by reducing layers, increasing ownership and removing bureaucracy.
“Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months. That’s not our plan.”
On Tuesday, the company appeared to have prematurely alerted Amazon Web Services cloud-computing employees to layoffs planned for Wednesday morning by sending a commiseration email and team-wide meeting invitation hours early.
The email, signed by Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions at AWS, wrongly said that impacted employees in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed they lost their jobs.
“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Aubrey wrote in the email. “These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organisation and AWS for future success.”
