Amazon China Lays Off Employees, Some Staff Have Received Emails

On April 8th, news came that some employees of Amazon China reportedly received layoff notification emails from headquarters. The leaked email content shows that Amazon claimed to have optimized teams in other business areas and found “redundancies in job categories such as project management and sales operations,” leading to the reduction of hundreds of positions in specific sales, marketing, and global service organizations.

Last Wednesday local time, Amazon announced that it would lay off hundreds of employees in its cloud computing department AWS as part of a ‘strategic shift.’ At the same time, Amazon will also cut hundreds of positions in the team responsible for physical store technology. Amazon stated at the time that it would also make cuts elsewhere to invest in other business priorities.

Amazon spokesperson Duncan Neasham said in a statement: These decisions, although difficult, are necessary as we will continue to invest, hire and optimize resources to provide innovation for our customers.

AWS layoffs come after other layoffs by Amazon and its subsidiaries earlier this year. In January, the company cut hundreds of positions in its Prime Video and MGM Studios departments. The same month, Amazon’s popular social media platform Twitch laid off more than 500 people to save costs. Online audiobook and podcast service Audible also let go of about 5% of its employees.

Amazon says it will continue to recruit in priority areas. The company currently has thousands of AWS job vacancies posted online. The company says it will do its best to find internal opportunities for employees affected by the roles.

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