4 ms·

So, approximately 1% of its workforce.

by Lendal 4y ago

swarnie 4y ago
I'm not sure the size of the reduction is the key point here, its the reversal from limitless hiring which is more telling.
sidewndr46 4y ago
So in line with the amount of turnover each year anyways due to "rank and yank" policies, be it official or just the implicit result of management's actions. The news industry is incredibly desperate for stories about layoffs it seems.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > The news industry is incredibly desperate for stories about layoffs it seems. I don't think this is an informed take. Amazon not only cancelled all hires but also increased the number of employees they want to fire. From the first time in the company's history, they explicitly announced they were going to fire people in a purely cost-cutting approach and in a way that was not tied to employee performance. If anything, this signals that Amazon changed radically it's corporate strategy from a growth-oriented strategy to a consolidation one. This has strong implications on the company's revenue expectations.
  - bushbaba 4y ago
    Or that it’s downsizing the Alexa and other retail r&d ventures.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    And they can start that hiring engine back up the morning after they make that press release. If you simply went through all of a company like IBM's announced layoffs of some percentage, you would find their headcount rapidly converges to a value of 0% sometime early in the company's history. Last time I checked, IBM is a not yet an AI-run business to the best of our understanding.
    - simplotek 4y ago
      > And they can start that hiring engine back up the morning after they make that press release. This is just ignorant speculation from your end. Amazon stopped all hiring rounds over a month ago and even rescinded open offers, and that hasn't changed since Andy Jassy announced the company was going to start the unprecedented firing rounds.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  The media hates tech because tech ate their lunch first. Any bad news gets immediate coverage, and when they’re out of that they start to make up problems.
  - jrsj 4y ago
    It’s more than that, it’s also that all of the wannabe journalists out there have contempt for people that are more successful than them that are lower social status. That being said I don’t think that has anything to do with Amazon in this case, just negative coverage of tech more broadly.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Humans are bad at big numbers. I wouldn't have guessed that was 1% of their workforce, nor the turnover rate. I would've guessed 150-200K, and 25%/year turnover. Even though this means more people. 18k still sounded huge until I wrote this comment.
  - simplotek 4y ago
    > Even though this means more people. 18k still sounded huge until I wrote this comment. 18k is huge because Amazon has been killing off entire teams, managers and all, instead of doing the typical Jack Welch decimation tactics.
- zug_zug 4y ago
  I hard disagree. I think layoffs incredibly emotionally jarring and a huge act of disrespect to the employees. You could be years-in pending promotion and given the boot with not even a word of justification (happens more often than you might think). And even though it's just 1% the not-knowing factor means it psychologically affects everyone. It's important to name-and-shame companies that can't be bothered to let go of people through legitimate channels of performance reviews, PIPs, allowing transfers, etc. Legitimizing overhire overfire is a dangerous road.
zwischenzug 4y ago
If it's one percent, that makes me think it's an announcement designed to help the share price, or send a message to its workforce, since 1% is close to natural attrition of a few months, ie some sort of hiring freeze could achieve a similar thing.
- jstx1 4y ago
  With natural attrition you don't get to pick which teams/people leave.
bluedino 4y ago
These aren't evenly distributed. I doubt any warehouse or fulfillment people are affected by this. These are people in corporate and technology roles, so it's a bigger number than 1%
- atdrummond 4y ago
  Warehouse and fulfillment already has pretty aggressive turnover rates already too; rather sure it would be suboptimal to make the position look less secure when you’re already churning through bodies so quickly.
tehlike 4y ago
It's higher fraction of corporate workforce, though.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
I don’t think they lay-off the warehouse workers since the work is so shit that it naturally has very high turnover.

So, approximately 1% of its workforce.

by Lendal 4y ago

So, approximately 1% of its workforce.

I'm not sure the size of the reduction is the key point here, its the reversal from limitless hiring which is more telling.

sidewndr46 4y ago

So in line with the amount of turnover each year anyways due to "rank and yank" policies, be it official or just the implicit result of management's actions. The news industry is incredibly desperate for stories about layoffs it seems.

simplotek 4y ago
> The news industry is incredibly desperate for stories about layoffs it seems. I don't think this is an informed take. Amazon not only cancelled all hires but also increased the number of employees they want to fire. From the first time in the company's history, they explicitly announced they were going to fire people in a purely cost-cutting approach and in a way that was not tied to employee performance. If anything, this signals that Amazon changed radically it's corporate strategy from a growth-oriented strategy to a consolidation one. This has strong implications on the company's revenue expectations.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  Or that it’s downsizing the Alexa and other retail r&d ventures.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  And they can start that hiring engine back up the morning after they make that press release. If you simply went through all of a company like IBM's announced layoffs of some percentage, you would find their headcount rapidly converges to a value of 0% sometime early in the company's history. Last time I checked, IBM is a not yet an AI-run business to the best of our understanding.
  - simplotek 4y ago
    > And they can start that hiring engine back up the morning after they make that press release. This is just ignorant speculation from your end. Amazon stopped all hiring rounds over a month ago and even rescinded open offers, and that hasn't changed since Andy Jassy announced the company was going to start the unprecedented firing rounds.
throwayyy479087 4y ago
The media hates tech because tech ate their lunch first. Any bad news gets immediate coverage, and when they’re out of that they start to make up problems.
- jrsj 4y ago
  It’s more than that, it’s also that all of the wannabe journalists out there have contempt for people that are more successful than them that are lower social status. That being said I don’t think that has anything to do with Amazon in this case, just negative coverage of tech more broadly.
ben_w 4y ago
Humans are bad at big numbers. I wouldn't have guessed that was 1% of their workforce, nor the turnover rate. I would've guessed 150-200K, and 25%/year turnover. Even though this means more people. 18k still sounded huge until I wrote this comment.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > Even though this means more people. 18k still sounded huge until I wrote this comment. 18k is huge because Amazon has been killing off entire teams, managers and all, instead of doing the typical Jack Welch decimation tactics.
zug_zug 4y ago
I hard disagree. I think layoffs incredibly emotionally jarring and a huge act of disrespect to the employees. You could be years-in pending promotion and given the boot with not even a word of justification (happens more often than you might think). And even though it's just 1% the not-knowing factor means it psychologically affects everyone. It's important to name-and-shame companies that can't be bothered to let go of people through legitimate channels of performance reviews, PIPs, allowing transfers, etc. Legitimizing overhire overfire is a dangerous road.

zwischenzug 4y ago

If it's one percent, that makes me think it's an announcement designed to help the share price, or send a message to its workforce, since 1% is close to natural attrition of a few months, ie some sort of hiring freeze could achieve a similar thing.

jstx1 4y ago
With natural attrition you don't get to pick which teams/people leave.

bluedino 4y ago

These aren't evenly distributed. I doubt any warehouse or fulfillment people are affected by this. These are people in corporate and technology roles, so it's a bigger number than 1%

atdrummond 4y ago
Warehouse and fulfillment already has pretty aggressive turnover rates already too; rather sure it would be suboptimal to make the position look less secure when you’re already churning through bodies so quickly.

tehlike 4y ago

It's higher fraction of corporate workforce, though.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

I don’t think they lay-off the warehouse workers since the work is so shit that it naturally has very high turnover.