Amazon announces that it is cutting a further 9,000 jobs worldwide

The company said the latest cuts would fall mostly in its cloud services, advertising and Twitch livestreaming units. Twitch is an interactive livestreaming service for content such as gaming, entertainment, sports and music.

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, said in a letter to workers that the company had added a substantial amount of staff in the past few years, but the uncertain economy has forced it to choose cost and headcount cuts. Amazon employs more than 1.5-million people worldwide.

Cutting back on expenses everywhere

“The company has been systematically cutting back on expenses across the business, announcing earlier this month that it was pausing the construction on part of its second headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Amazon has also been slowing down the global expansion of its network of distribution centres, warehouses and other facilities since at least 2022, in some cases scrapping planned projects entirely,” the London-based The Guardian newspaper reported.

Recently Meta – which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – also announced more job cuts. Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said a further 10,000 positions would be made redundant this year, in addition to the 11,000 redundancies implemented in November 2022.

Amazon has also apparently delayed its South African marketplace launch until late 2023 and put its Nigerian market entry on hold until further notice.

Amazon’s entry is long-awaited by consumers and marketers in these two key African markets, although there has also been concern at the potential impact this may have on homegrown e-commerce players such as Takealot and Jumia.