Amazon leadership says hard economic times forced the company to initiate wide-ranging layoffs.
Andy Jassy, the company CEO, said: “We had the lens of a very uncertain economic environment, as well as our having hired very aggressively over the last several years.”
Speaking with the New York Times DealBook summit last week, Jassy submitted that: “We just felt like we needed to streamline our costs.”
Last week, the company announced that, “it begun laying off corporate workers, with plans for layoffs to continue into early next year and is reportedly planning to cut up to 10,000 employees, though it has not confirmed a figure.”
“A lot has happened in the last few years that I’m not sure people anticipated…You just look in 2020, our retail business grew 39 per cent year-over-year, at a $245 billion annual run rate, which is unprecedented, and it forced us to make decisions in that time to spend a lot more money and to go much faster in building infrastructure than we ever imagined we would,” Jassy said.
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“We built a physical fulfillment center footprint over 25 years that we doubled in 24 months,” he added.
Despite the landmark union victory in April, Catherine Thorbecke reports, “Amazon has so far refused to formally recognize the grassroots worker group known as the Amazon Labor Union or come to the bargaining table.”
Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls dismissed Jassy, saying he, “even had the audacity to feel comfortable to come to New York City knowing that we haven’t negotiated anything yet.”
