Amazon set to make job cuts ahead of global recession, as Jeff Bezos pledges to give away ‘most of’ fortune

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Amazon join Twitter, Meta and Disney as potential job redundancies loom despite Jeff Bezos’ pledge to give away most of his fortune in his lifetime

Amazon looks set to be another of a list of companies set to make job cuts due to cost cutting measures. The news comes after high profile layoffs that have taken place at Twitter since Elon Musk’s acquisition in October, and details of both Meta and Disney looking at rescaling their business models ahead of a predicted global recession.

The New York Times reports that around 10,000 jobs in the corporate and technology arm of Amazon as the cuts “will focus on Amazon’s devices organisation, including the voice assistant Alexa, as well as at its retail division and in human resources” an anonymous source told the US media outlet. It would be the largest series of layoffs in the online retail giant’s history.

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Despite the popularity of Amazon, especially during the global coronavirus pandemic, the company in July of this year posted that their revenue was up by 7.2% compared to July 2021. That was one of the slowest growths the company had experienced in two decades, with blame being shared between an investment in Rivian Automotive and the strength of the US dollar.

Amazon froze hiring in several smaller teams in September and a month later stopped filling more than 10,000 open roles, while more recently the company froze corporate hiring for the next few months. Amazon by their own admission admitted that they had “over-hired” during the pandemic when they were seeing record revenue with the company.

The news comes ironically as Jeff Bezos announced that he would be donating “most of” his fortune to charitable organisations during his lifetime during an interview with CNN during the same timespan as Dolly Parton winning the 2022 Bezos Courage and Civility Award. The philanthropic country music star received $100 million to donate to her own charitable causes.

Should the layoffs go ahead, Amazon looks to start the proceedings going through individual teams as early as next week, the New York Times articles also revealed.

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