Amazon Web Services to lay off hundreds of employees: reports

Hundreds of employees in Amazon Web Services (AWS) are being laid off as the organisation cites a need to streamline its operations, according to reports.

AWS is laying off employees from its Sales, Marketing, and Global Services organisation, as well as Physical Stores Technology team, GeekWire reported.

According to the report, most cuts in the Sales, Marketing, and Global Services will involve roles in training and certification, as well as sales operations.

Matt Garman, AWS senior vice president, said the layoffs will reduce "duplication and inefficiency" as the company prepares for the future.

For its Physical Stores Technology team, the impacted roles cover a portion of AWS identity and checkout teams, according to Dilip Kumar, vice president of AWS applications.

"We've learned a lot through the launch of identity and checkout technologies in our large format Amazon Fresh stores and have good customer feedback to inform our plans going forward," Kumar said as quoted by GeekWire.

Affected employees in the United States will receive their pay and benefits for at least 60 days and will be eligible for severance payments. According to the company, they will also receive outplacement job search support.

Amazon layoffs

The company confirmed the layoffs to various news outlets on Wednesday.

"We've identified a few targeted areas of the organisation we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact," a spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

"We didn't make these decisions lightly, and we're committed to supporting the employees throughout their transition to new roles in and outside of Amazon."

The layoffs come as Amazon laid off over 20,000 employees between 2022 and 2023, according to reports. Its recent round of retrenchments adds it to the growing list of employers reducing its staff this 2024.