Amazon on Tuesday it began laying off some employees in its ad as a part of CEO Andy Jassy’s efforts to chop costs, the company confirmed.
Paul Kotas, Amazon’s senior vice chairman of advertising, IMDb and Grand Challenge, sent a memo to employees notifying them of the layoffs, based on a duplicate of the memo shared by an Amazon spokesperson.
“As Andy said just a few weeks ago, throughout the planning process for 2023, we meticulously prioritized resources with the aim of maximizing customer advantages and the long-term health of our business,” Kotas wrote. “For ads, the method involved reallocating resources by changing team members, slowing down or stopping some programs, or finding we did not have the correct skills to deal with our priorities. Because of this, we have made deeply thoughtful decisions about how best to maneuver forward, resulting in the elimination of roles for a small percentage of our organization.”
It is not clear what number of individuals are passed through the ad unit. Jassy last month announced that Amazon would cut 9,000 employees, in addition to the 18,000 cuts already announced in November and January. Earlier cuts were primarily in retail, equipment, recruitment and human resources.
In March, Jassy said the ultimate round would affect employees in advertising, cloud computing, Twitch live streaming and human resources at Amazon. Earlier this month, about 100 employees in Amazon’s video game industry were also laid off.
Amazon is undergoing the most important layoffs in its 29-year history after occurring a hiring spree in the course of the Covid pandemic. The company’s global workforce grew to over 1.6 million by the top of 2021, up from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Jassy also takes into consideration the company’s overall spending review, which is reckoning with the economic slowdown and slowing growth in its core retail business. Amazon froze the employment of corporate employees, limited some experimental projects and slowed down the event of warehouses.
By announcing layoffs in advertising and Amazon Web Services, Jassy showed that Amazon’s two largest and most profitable firms usually are not proof against cost-cutting.
Here is the total note from Kotas:
Hello everyone,
I desired to share that this morning we took the difficult step of informing members of the Amazon Ads team who’ve been affected by layoffs in the US and Canada. In other regions, we follow local policies that require additional time and extra process steps, including consultation with worker representatives. We are going to communicate with affected employees in other regions in accordance with these policies and timelines. We recognize that this message is essential to all members of our team, and subsequently we wish to offer you additional context of each the choice to eliminate roles and the way we support our affected colleagues.
As Andy said just a few weeks ago, throughout the planning process for 2023, we meticulously prioritized resources with the aim of maximizing customer advantages and the long-term health of our business. For ads, this process involved reallocating resources by changing team members, slowing down or stopping some programs, or finding we did not have the correct skills to deal with our priorities. Because of this, we made deeply thoughtful decisions about how best to maneuver forward, which resulted in the elimination of roles for a small percentage of our organization.
Importantly, I would like to acknowledge and thank our associates for the work they’ve done on behalf of Amazon Ads customers. Our immediate goal is to support our team members through this difficult transition, and to that end, employees whose roles have been eliminated can have a private follow-up with their team leader to clarify the subsequent steps. Those affected will receive full pay and advantages for the subsequent 60 days (90 days in Latest York and Latest Jersey), plus a further severance package and layoff support to assist them find their next job outside of Amazon.
Looking ahead, I’m very optimistic in regards to the opportunities ahead, even in an uncertain economic environment. We now have built a solid foundation and personally I’m very excited in regards to the inventions and constructing which can be going down in our organization. I also wish to thank each one among you for showing mutual empathy and support during this time. Contact team leaders or myHR with any questions.
Paul
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