Don’t Miss a Post. Subscribe now.

Amazon Ups Layoffs to 18,000 and Sales Force will Slash 10% of Staff

Amazon to Cut 5 Percent of Corporate Workforce

In a blog post on January 4, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy issued a Layoff Update on Roll Eliminations

Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.

We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted. However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me. 

In November, Amazon announced 10,000 layoffs. The new announcement ups the total to 18,000. 

The Wall Street Journal reports the layoffs are concentrated in the company’s corporate ranks and represent roughly 5% of that element of its workforce, and 1.2% of its overall tally of 1.5 million employees as of September.

Salesforce to Lay Off 10% of Workforce, Reduce Offices

Also note Salesforce to Lay Off 10% of Workforce, Reduce Offices

Salesforce Inc. is laying off 10% of its workforce and reducing its office space in certain markets, extending a brutal period for tech job cuts into the new year.

Salesforce Co-Chief Executive Marc Benioff said that the cuts come as many of the company’s customers are taking a more cautious approach to spending, a trend that a growing number of software companies said they have been facing lately.

“The environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions,” Mr. Benioff said in a letter to employees.

Mr. Benioff, who also serves as chairman of the company, said the business-software provider hired too many people as revenue surged earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic. “I take responsibility for that,” he said.

Vimeo Layoffs Impacting 11 Percent of Employees

TechCrunch reports Vimeo enters 2023 with a round of layoffs impacting 11% of employees

Vimeo rings in the new year with another round of layoffs, affecting 11% of its workforce. In an email to staff today, CEO Anjali Sud cited an “uncertain economic environment” as the reason for the reduction.

This isn’t the first round of layoffs for the video hosting platform, which cut 6% of its staff in July 2022. Since the July layoffs, Vimeo has seen a “further deterioration in economic conditions, in the form of prolonged geopolitical conflict, rising interest rates, and global recession fears,” Sud said. In November, the company reported its third-quarter earnings, showing a loss of about 100,000 subscribers from the previous quarter and an operating loss of $22.9 million.

Strong Jobs?

Please consider my December 2, 2022 post Another Strong Jobs Report? Phooey, and I Can Prove It

Payrolls vs Employment Since March 2022

  • Nonfarm Payrolls: +2,692,000
  • Employment Level: +12,000
  • Full Time Employment: -398,000

Millions are retiring but millions of others are taking second part time jobs to make ends meet. So yes, we can be adding part time jobs while employment is stagnant.

The Fed picked up on this, at least enough to mention. But I have been commenting along these lines for months.

Fed is Concerned 

Meanwhile FOMC Minutes Show Concern That Markets Do Not Believe the Fed’s Resolve

The Fed is concerned over wage growth and persistent inflation more so than recession, stretched budgets, and the fact that housing and manufacturing that have both collapsed.

Not to worry, the Fed and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen still believe in a soft landing. 

This post originated on MishTalk.Com.

Thanks for Tuning In!

Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen. Read the ones you like and you can unsubscribe at any time.

If you have subscribed and do not get email alerts, please check your spam folder.

Mish

Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen. Read the ones you like and you can unsubscribe at any time.

This post originated on MishTalk.Com

Thanks for Tuning In!

Mish

Comments to this post are now closed.

44 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Dear Andy,
You can do whatever you want with your roles, just don’t axe my job.
Thanks, Me
Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
It’s a small amount of people. They should actually be hiring people in the area that oversees their sellers.
I’ve been battling with Amazon the last 6 weeks over a seller that is/was blatantly buying 5-star reviews by putting a card in their product packages offering a $30 gift card for all 5-star reviews. I submitted numerous reports of this to various Amazon channels, including up to their executive offices but no action has been taken to remove the 5-star reviews on the product (because there is no guarantee that these were not bought and paid for) or to remove the seller. To date, Amazon has not taken any action against the seller or the associated reviews.
I tried to submit a 1-star review pointing out the evidence of likely fake reviews and Amazon refused to publish it, stating that criticism of sellers was not allowed in reviews!
Do not buy this garbage product! The reviews are likely fake and the product is grossly inaccurate.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Try including a $30 gift card in the reports you submit to Amazon personnel. You will get a better reception.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
I’ve gotten gift card offers for good reviews. I never follow up. Seems very unlikely I would ever get the gift card.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Jojo – did you get the 30 bucks or not?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
It has 12 reviews, including yours. Comparable products have thousands. DUH!
Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
Your point being?
Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
If anyone wants to mess with Amazon, go to the URL and click the “report abuse” button on all the 5-star reviews.
spa sidechats
spa sidechats
3 years ago
Alexa is not the cash cow they though from what I read. I did buy the music subscription for my mother which she loves but she doesn’t use Amazon for anything else and we cancelled ours after the election was stolen. I own several Alexas but we unplugged them due to the illegal spying. For music, I bought a Sirius lifetime subscription (not offered anymore) when they were about to go bankrupt over a decade ago, otherwise I would have cancelled that as well.
Last time I bought something on Amazon was a leg press but that was only for the free shipping. It weighed about 500lbs and everyone wanted to charge freight. No way they made money shipping that for free. I honestly see no value in Amazon big picture. Most of the products are older closeout models which I do not want. After a few times of having to go to the manufacture’s site to get the latest model that was it for me. I know they make money on their cloud with the government contracts but even that is a rip off. The government was doing it more cost effective with their own centers.
Bam_Man
Bam_Man
3 years ago
The people laid off from Salesforce will then have to get two part-time jobs to make ends meet.
Thus, a net increase of one new “job” created for each layoff.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  Bam_Man
One doesn’t make up for a 350k gig with 2 20k gigs.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz
Nice summary of why the economy is far worse than reported.
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz
One does if one is the Government and only counts gigs.
Directed Energy
Directed Energy
3 years ago
I gave up on Prime when they raised the price. To top it off, “prime delivery” was always 5 to 7 days for us. What happened to 2 days? (I know it depends on area)
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
what happened is a labor shortage. with 10,000 boomers retiring every day expect long wait times at the doctor, dentist, grocery store, airline (no pilots or flight staff or mechanics), etc. Heck, I can’t even find a CPA anywhere and I started researching why…
There will be mass shortages of everything. That’s the new normal.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
A lot depends on where the product is being shipped from and who’s doing the shipping. If amazon handles the entire fulfillment, I get things very fast. Sometimes the same day.
Directed Energy
Directed Energy
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
I lived outside Los Angeles in the Inland Empire, and got things very fast. They are much slower in Huntsville.
JackWebb
JackWebb
3 years ago
You live in Huntsville? I got to know it a bit. Dealt with Adtran. Great company under Mark Smith.
8dots
8dots
3 years ago
AAPL two inside bars, at the moment. Down to Aug 24/25 backbone : 128.79/123.05. // MSFT closed a gap. // Bezus F..up. He landed on June 21/25 2018 TR. He and Ilan will fly to Saturan to extract H3 to produce electricity….US labor force cover the globe. Layoffs start over there. VIX don’t care. DXY might be down for more PnF count when (if) the Dow will make a new all time high, making a N-wave, or E-wave, before breaching Oct lows. SPX might make a round trip to prick Feb 2020 high or below. DXY will pop to 130/140 for fun and entertainment only.
King Charles is the inverse of KIng David.
shamrock
shamrock
3 years ago
The layoffs aren’t really making a dent, ADP jobs report this morning showed increase of 235,000 versus 153,000 expected. Also this morning the November trade deficit fell by an astonishing amount, $16.3b less than October, which will add to 4th quarter GDP.
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
Reply to  shamrock
And they aren’t layoffs they are layoff announcements. Wolfstreet had an interesting post calling out the fact that many companies are merely saying they are going to layoff and not actually doing it. It is a ploy to scare workers into accepting low 3% raises even though inflation is at 7% but hey at least you got a job.
The truth is the quit (great resignation) is starting up again. And why not? With 10,000 boomers retiring everyday, a few other thousand going on disability it’s an employees market.
Bam_Man
Bam_Man
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Life on the Corporate Plantation.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
If anything, I’m getting more recruiter traffic lately. Tech people are still in very high demand.
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz
I got 17 solicitations on LinkedIn for jobs. It all depends on your skillset I guess. I’m not moving though, my current employer is hopefully the last one before I retire in a few years.
Jack
Jack
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Thinking of getting a second job.
Lots of high performers getting 2-3 full time WFH jobs these days – make more money than a promotion.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  Jack
I’m just not that energetic anymore, unfortunately.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
I’ll talk to some of them, but I haven’t been able to get the pay bump I want. May just fester here till retirement.
shamrock
shamrock
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Yes, but the layoff announcements have been coming in for a year. 80-90% are in full force or already completed.
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
Reply to  shamrock
And yet JOLTS shows little change…..something doesn’t add up.
Avery
Avery
3 years ago
Quick – get XOM back into the Dow 30 !!!
Quark711
Quark711
3 years ago
“Fire one million” – Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
Quagmire46
Quagmire46
3 years ago
Two comments:
First : What recession? ( OK, this is sarcasm.)
Secondly, I had to look up Amazon PXT. It is “Amazon’s People Experience and Technology Solutions (PXT Solutions) team”.
Eight months ago Amazon put out a recruiting video for their PXT. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfAfR44SXPg )
Now they are laying off. Tells me more than all of that drivel from the Federal Reserve.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Based on how things have played out in the past, I predict the media will say everything is great until the bottom falls out and then they’ll say no one saw this coming.
Sunriver
Sunriver
3 years ago
Between higher borrowing costs and lower margins due to input costs, fully expect layoffs here.
However, demographics have imposed a lower ceiling to potential layoffs mostly because very few people actually work anymore.
A sense of hopelessness has encapsulated this country and I truly believe the amount of debt (FED caused) is the reason.
‘The Buyer’s Remorse Recession’ is what the 2023 recession should be called.
Matt3
Matt3
3 years ago
I think most of these tech companies could get rid of 30% of the staff and not even notice. Very low productivity in the last few years. The big revenue growth masked the lack of productivity.
As a rule, almost any business can drop 10% of overhead staff.
Quagmire46
Quagmire46
3 years ago
Reply to  Matt3
What percent did Musk let go at Twitter?
Yet Twitter still functions last time I checked.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  Quagmire46
There’s been one major outage. If they make it through the next year they’ll be fine… but I’ve talked to a couple people that worked there that said the system is baling wire and bubble gum… which is common. What’s not common is laying off most of the people that knew how to work on it without breaking it.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Matt3
It’s not just tech companies. Any company with mid-level management can likely eliminate half those people. Why do you need someone to get direction from above and communicate this down to the underlings who do all the work? And they can’t even do that correctly much of the time. That’s what Twitter did. They kept the IT staff that actually did stuff and got rid of all the program managers and the like. People who go to meetings all day and make sure the IT staff is involved in the meetings as little as possible. So as to insure people don’t figure out it makes a lot more sense to deal with the IT people directly instead of the middle manager.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Musk did say that there seems to be 10 people “managing” for every one person coding. With a ratio like that the word “blot” doesn’t come near to the reality. Another word has to be coined.
klausmkl
klausmkl
3 years ago
I noticed on Indeed Amazon is still hiring but at a much lower pay scale, 16 an hour in Boise , Idaho. They were paying like 20 an hour. They will hire back at a lower scale. Welcome to Crony Capitalisim in America, land of the unfree and cowardly.
Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
Reply to  klausmkl
Amazon is in the forefront of replacing human workers with robots. Can you work faster than a robot?
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Yes. Robots aren’t typically used because of their speed. They’re used because they can reliably do the same task over and over and they aren’t paid a wage or have benefits.
Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Depends on the application. D’oh.
ajc1970
ajc1970
3 years ago
Reply to  klausmkl
They’re probably not hiring for jobs identical to those being eliminated — unless the job is moving to another state.
In those situations, a company is usually better off making an effort to keep the already-trained personnel and Amazon is keen to that.
I was able to pull up 6 Amazon listings for my narrow field, though 5 were overseas and only 1 in Seattle

Decorate Your Walls with Mish Fine Art Images

Click each image to view details or purchase in the store.

Stay Informed

Subscribe to MishTalk

You will receive all messages from this feed and they will be delivered by email.