Amazon to lay off 9,000 employees

Yahoo Finance Live’s Julie Hyman reports that Amazon will lay off 9,000 employees in an additional round of job cuts.

Video transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: We've got some breaking news right now Amazon is saying it is laying off an additional 9,000 employees. This news coming from CEO Andy Jassy in a memo to Amazon employees that is now shared on the company's website. He says that most of these reductions are going to be in Amazon Web Services in the company's people experience and technology solutions business, what they call PXT in advertising and in Twitch.

He says this was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term. And he also says, you might wonder why we didn't just announce this in January when we announced the elimination of 18,000 positions at Amazon. He says that the teams had not yet finished their assessments of what was necessary for this year, and they didn't want to rush through those decisions. So that's why this additional 9,000 is being announced today.

And Brad, you know, obviously, each one of these represents somebody who is losing their role, but it is also just the bigger picture in the tech industry that efficiency is the name of the game right now.

- Yeah. And that's the continuing message that you hear from either Amazon or even a Meta Platforms that upped its own headcount reduction number and, as of recent, as last week. As one thing that we've continued to see within these plans going forward, and especially with the announcement of Amazon here, even as they're communicating with these employees, is where that shuffling, the reshuffling of some of the headcounts, as you have massive layoffs that take place at the tech companies that have the largest headcounts out there, where those employees are able to find jobs elsewhere?

Because that's going to be critical in ensuring that we still do maintain some of the broader employment situation that is still continue to operate from a broader sense of strength. It's just a matter of, OK, where in this displacement are there the replacement or the filling of roles elsewhere that still remain open ? Even as more hiring freezes are starting to come on, I think that's what a lot of employees that may be impacted by this might potentially be going through their heads right now.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, I mean, we have talked to companies that are still hiring. We talked to Adobe last week, for example. And they talked about that they are still in hiring mode.

One more thing I just want to mention that Jassy says. He remains very optimistic, he says, about the future and the myriad of opportunities we have both in our largest businesses stores in the AWS and our newer customer experiences and businesses in which we're investing. So his tone is still-- some of these announcements when they come with the cuts are taking much more somber tone.

- Right.

JULIE HYMAN: This is still saying we are still-- we're getting leaner, but we're still focusing on growing. So we'll see what ends up being the outcome of all of this.

- Yeah, there's a major kind of note to strike within your own communications as a leader through this times knowing that there are such significant announcements impacting so many people that you are making and for the course of the company going forward as well.