Participants are going through an exhibition hall in AWS Re: Invent, a conference organized by Amazon Web Services, in Las Vegas on December 3, 2024.
Noah Shepherd | Getty images
Amazon Some staff members of its Cloud Computing division have been dismissed, confirmed the company on Thursday.
“After an in-depth examination of our organization, our priorities and what we have to focus on the future, we have made the business decision difficult to eliminate certain roles between specific teams in AWS,” said Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser. “We did not make these decisions lightly and we are committed to supporting employees throughout their transition.”
The company refused to say what units in Amazon’s web services have been affected, or how many employees will be released as a result of job cuts.
The AWS training and certification unit was one of the groups to see cuts, according to a note sent by the chief of the Michelle Vaz division and seen by CNBC.
Reuters was the first to report on layoffs.
In May, Amazon reported a third quarterly consecutive income in AWS. Sales increased by 17% to 29.27 billion dollars in the first quarter, slowed down by 18.9% in the previous period.
Amazon said the cuts were not mainly due to investments in artificial intelligence, but are the result of continuous efforts to rationalize the workforce and refocus on certain priorities. The company said it continued to rent in AWS.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been on a cost reduction mission for several years, which has made more than 27,000 employees that have been released since 2022. The job discounts have continued this year, although a smaller scale than in previous years. Amazon stores, communications and devices, divisions of Amazon stores, have been struck by layoffs in recent months.
Last year, AWS reduced hundreds of jobs in its physical store and sales and marketing technology units.
Last month, Jassy predicted that Amazon’s business workforce could shrink even more following the company adopting a generative AI.
“We will need fewer people who make some of the jobs that are underway today, and more people make other types of jobs,” Jassy told employees. “It is difficult to know exactly where it takes place over time, but in the coming years, we expect it to reduce our total business workforce.”
