Amazon cut 27,000 roles, including many in HR. Here’s where it’s investing those savings

Amazon’s first quarter earnings call shed light on the company’s shifting investments following leadership’s decision to cut a whopping 27,000 jobs. The widespread cuts, which severely diminished the tech giant’s HR team, were said to be an effort to help streamline costs.

Amazon began its latest layoffs last week, targeting HR and cloud computing employees. And an internal memo sent to Amazon Web Services (AWS) hiring managers on Tuesday revealed that the company would restrict the number of hires the cloud business can make, going so far as to employ a new headcount management system to better monitor hiring plans. 

The moves aren’t a surprise. Late last year, the company announced it would freeze corporate hiring, slow the expansion of its warehouses, and end some of its more experimental projects like Amazon Care and its Halo device division.

“Like most leadership teams, we’ll continue to evaluate what we’re seeing in our business and proceed adaptively,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the Thursday earnings call. “But while we’ve taken several actions to streamline our costs, we’ve been able to do so while still pursuing the key strategic long-term investments that we believe can meaningfully make customers’ lives better and potentially change what Amazon is.” 

Translation: Amazon will invest more heavily into “noncore” businesses as growth slows among its signature e-commerce services. 

During the earnings call, Jassy said Amazon would expand its international segment and pour more resources into its “still nascent” grocery business. Jassy also confirmed that Amazon plans to further develop its Buy with Prime program, entertainment, devices, health care, and its low Earth orbit satellite—Project Kuiper—to help people, companies, and governments with limited to no internet access.

Areas in which the company appeared to be still hiring earlier this year included its Ring doorbell and pharmacy businesses, and it’s still listing job openings for engineers, supply chain managers, and sales representatives.

“It’s hard to predict that all of these will be successful, but only one or two working would change our business over the long term,” said Jassy.

Amber Burton
[email protected]
@amberbburton

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According to the Labor Department, job openings fell to a nearly two-year low in March. Job postings dropped from almost 10 million in February to 9.6 million the next month, signaling the job market is losing momentum. 

"Layoffs rose to 1.8 million, the highest level since December 2020. The number of Americans quitting their jobs—a sign they have confidence they can find better pay or working conditions elsewhere—dropped to 3.9 million, lowest since May 2021." —Associated Press

Around the Table

A round-up of the most important HR headlines, studies, podcasts, and long-reads.

- New college grads are less interested in working for tech companies after recent layoffs made job security uncertain. Insider

- A company in Indiana announced it would build hundreds of homes and sell them to employees at below-market prices. NPR

- U.S. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) Won’t require staffers to have college degrees. Bloomberg

-  The Biden administration plans to end COVID-19 vaccine requirements for federal workers on May 11. Wall Street Journal

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Everything you need to know from Coins2Day .

ChatGPT banned. Samsung is banning ChatGPT at work after an employee uploaded sensitive information to the chatbot. —Nicholas Gordon

Bankers (final) hours. Morgan Stanley plans to lay off 3,000 people, roughly 5% of its workforce. —Sridhar Natarajan

Thinking machine. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says, in the future, the company could pause hiring for certain back-office roles that A.I. Can perform. —Brody Ford

Worth a look. Switching jobs still gives workers a pay bump, although raises are smaller than last year. —Alicia Adamczyk