Amazon Downsizes Workforce in Its Advertising Unit, as Part of Its Cost-Cutting Efforts

Giant e-commerce company Amazon has laid off some of its employees in its advertising unit, as part of its cost-cutting efforts.

The information about the layoffs was passed across by the company’s senior vice president Paul Katos on Tuesday via a memo, to employees informing them of the layoffs.

The memo reads,

“I wanted to share that this morning we took the difficult step of informing Amazon Ads team members who were impacted by role reductions in the U.S. and Canada. In other regions, we are following local policies which require additional time and process steps, including consultation with employee representative bodies.

“We will communicate with affected employees in other regions in accordance with those policies and timelines. We recognize that this news is significant for all our team members and, therefore, want to provide you with additional context on both the decision to eliminate roles and how we are supporting our impacted colleagues. As Andy shared a few weeks ago, throughout the 2023 planning process, we’ve been scrupulously prioritizing resources to maximize benefits to customers and the long-term health of our business.

“For Ads, this process has involved reallocating resources by shifting team members, slowing down or stopping certain programs, or concluding we didn’t have the right skills in place to address our priorities. As a result, we have made deeply-considered decisions about how best to move forward, resulting in role eliminations for a small percentage of our organization.

Katos further disclosed that affected employees will receive full pay and benefits for the next 60 days (90 days if in New York and New Jersey), plus an additional severance package and outplacement support to help with finding their next role outside of Amazon.

Investors King understands that Amazon’s recent layoff of employees in its advertising unit is part of the previously announced job cuts by the company, which are expected to affect 9,000 employees.

Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy is currently taking on a broad overview of the company’s expenses and slowing growth in its core retail business, as it seeks to navigate the current economic downturn.

It is however interesting to note that Amazon is undergoing the largest layoffs in the company’s history after it went on a hiring spree during the covid-19 pandemic.