Amazon bungles layoff plan with misfired internal e-mail
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Jobs in Amazon’s units covering Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video and human resources were slated to be affected, according to sources speaking to Reuters.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon on Jan 27 appeared to have mistakenly alerted many Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing employees about layoffs planned for the morning of Jan 28 with a commiseration e-mail and team-wide meeting invite sent hours too early.
Reuters reported on Jan 23 that Amazon intended to lay off thousands of corporate employees
The e-mail sent on Jan 27 signed by Ms Colleen Aubrey, senior vice-president of applied AI solutions at AWS, wrongly says that impacted employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed they lost their jobs.
In Slack channels viewed by Reuters, AWS employees who received the e-mail said the meeting invite for Jan 28 was almost immediately cancelled. Amazon referred in the e-mail to the layoffs as “Project Dawn”.
“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Ms Aubrey wrote in the e-mail, reviewed by Reuters. “These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organisation and AWS for future success.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jobs in units covering AWS, retail, Prime Video and human resources were slated to be affected, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, though the full scope of this week’s layoffs was unclear.
Amazon laid off about 14,000 people in October, part of a broader plan to reduce the number of corporate staff by around 30,000, people familiar with the matter said at the time. Amazon tied the October job cuts to the increased use of artificial intelligence and efforts to reduce layers of bureaucracy.
The full 30,000 jobs would represent a small portion of Amazon’s 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10 per cent of the firm’s corporate workforce.
On Jan 27, Amazon cut jobs in its Fresh grocery and Go market divisions as it plans to close existing bricks-and-mortar stores and convert some of them into Whole Foods stores. REUTERS
