The latest round of Amazon layoffs will impact AWS, Twitch, advertising and PXT, CEO Andy Jassy said. Credit: IDG Amazon will fire about 9,000 more workers from several business units, including AWS, in the coming weeks, according to a statement released today by company CEO Andy Jassy. The announcement comes two months after Amazon unveiled plans to lay off 18,000 employees. In his official statement, Jassy said that most of the layoffs in this second round will affect employees at AWS, PXT (People Experience and Technology, the company’s HR arm), Advertising, and Twitch, the popular livestreaming service purchased by Amazon in 2014 for nearly $1 billion. Jassy also wrote that the company would provide severance pay, transitional health insurance and assistance with job placement. “Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,” he wrote. “The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible.” Amazon is far from the only tech company to make major staffing cuts in recent months — just this month, Meta announced that it would fire 10,000 employees, over and above the 11,000 job cuts that it announced four months ago. Twitter’s latest round of layoffs, which became public in late February, has seen the social media firm reduced to around 2,000 employees, sharply down from 7,500 immediately before Elon Musk’s controversial takeover. After a year in which technology companies announced massive layoffs, tech sector layoffs in 2023 are looking no different — in fact, the year is starting off worse than 2022. Facing an uncertain global economy, technology companies have accelerated the pace of layoffs in 2023, after sweeping job cuts rocked the industry last year. In all, about 162,000 tech workers have lost their jobs this year, according to layoff tracker TrueUp. One narrative around these layoffs has been that supporting workers, rather than engineers, have been most in the crosshairs of cost-cutting efforts. The news today that AWS — one of Amazon’s biggest revenue-generating businesses — has been affected is a new wrinkle. Even AWS has not been immune to current macroeconomic conditions. Revenue growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter of 2022, to 20% in year-on-year terms. That’s well below the 27.5% and 33% figures seen in the previous two quarters. Nor is it the only major cloud provider to experience slowing growth, with both Microsoft and Google reporting slight but noticeable downturns in the same quarter. Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky, on a recent earnings call, said that the company expects economic conditions to continue to act as a brake on revenues for the better part of 2023. “As we look ahead, we expect these optimization efforts (reduced spending) will continue to be a headwind to AWS growth in at least the next couple of quarters,” he said. Related content feature Rocket Mortgage lays foundation for generative AI success The US mortgage lender, which has a history making the most of machine learning and AI, is taking a model-agnostic approach to generative AI, boosted by a versatile data platform tuned for speed. By Paula Rooney Mar 29, 2024 7 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Artificial Intelligence feature 10 fastest growing US tech hubs for IT talent You don’t need to move to Silicon Valley to cash in on the boom for IT talent. These 10 cities are among the fastest growing tech hubs by salary, according to Dice. By Sarah K. White Mar 29, 2024 10 mins Salaries Careers opinion 4 lessons healthcare can teach us about successful applications of AI From LLMs for clinical decision support, to best-in-class medical chatbots, healthcare is paving the way for applied generative AI. By David Talby Mar 28, 2024 5 mins Healthcare Industry Artificial Intelligence news White House requires agencies to create AI safeguards, appoint CAIOs A new OMB policy focuses on maintaining public safety and protecting human rights as the federal government begins to embrace AI. By Grant Gross Mar 28, 2024 5 mins Government IT Generative AI IT Governance PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe