According to a report from The New York Times, Amazon is planning a big lay off of approximately 10,000 people. Insiders said that employees working in corporate and technology roles are losing their jobs starting this week. Amazon shares dropped down about 2% by the end of last Monday.

If Amazon goes through with the massive lay off, it’ll be the largest cut in the tech giant’s history. It could severely impact several of Amazon’s divisions such as devices organization, human resources and its retail division. 

These alleged layoffs would represent about 3% of the company’s corporate employees, and 1% of Amazon’s global workforce. 

This news about the possible Amazon massive lay off follows reductions of other big tech companies. Last week, Meta announced that it was cutting loose close to 13% of its staff. That amounts to approximately 11,000 employees. 

After Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition, Twitter reportedly fired half of its working staff. With reports of an ongoing effort to hire some of them back after the company’s been experiencing issues with their platform. 

By the end of 2019, Amazon had 798,000 employees globally. As of December 31, 2021, the company had over 1.6 million employees worldwide. That is a 102% increase in its workforce. According to The New York Times, this massive Amazon lay off is fluid, and the numbers could change. 

The holiday season is a critical shopping period for Amazon. Usually, it’s when the company increases its headcount in order to meet demand. However, Andy Jassy – the new CEO since July 2021 – has been cutting costs to preserve money as the company faces a significant slowing in sales during a damaged global economy. 

Concurrent with the Amazon lay off news, the company’s also announced plans to halt hiring for corporate roles in its retail business. Recently, Amazon shut down quite a few of its services, including most of its U.S. call centers, its delivery robot, brick-and-mortar chains and a few warehouse locations.  

Amazon’s third-quarter earning reports in October were considered disappointing, and spooked investors. That caused the company’s share to drop over 13%. It marked the first time since 2020 that Amazon’s market cap fell below $1 trillion. 

However, the report was the second time in 2022 alone that Amazon’s disappointing results have sparked a double-digit percentage drop. The sell-off went on for a few days after the report, and nearly erased all of the stock’s earned surge during the pandemic. 

The company’s stock is down more than 40% in 2022, and it’s on its way for its worst year in more than a decade. 

The holiday shopping season is just around the corner, but it looks like consumers have other plans. Since the pandemic’s gotten under control, people are spending less on goods and services and more on travel. Follow the link below to understand more on the matter.