Amazon to cut 9,000 jobs in second wave of layoffs

Amazon follows in the footsteps of Facebook parent Meta, becoming the second company to announce a second round of cuts.

Chief Executive Andy Jassy said the company had significantly increased its workforce in recent years, but economic uncertainty forced it to choose to cut costs and staff. The cuts will be concentrated in its cloud services, advertising and Twitch units.

“Given the uncertain economy in which we live and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more agile in our costs and workforce,” Jassy said in a statement posted on the company’s website.

Last month, Amazon said its operating profit could continue to fall in the current quarter, hurt by the financial impact of tightening spending by consumers and cloud customers. Sales at its lucrative cloud computing division slowed in the fourth quarter.

Amazon has reduced or shut down entire services, such as its virtual primary care offering for businesses. Amazon shares were down 1.4% in morning Nasdaq trading.

Meta announced it will cut 10,000 jobs this year, following the first mass layoff in the fall, which eliminated more than 11,000 jobs.