CEO Andy Jassy cites an ‘uncertain economy’ and more uncertainty in the near future

By Sebastian Herrera and  Joseph De AvilaUpdated March 20, 2023 7:50 pm ET – for WSJ

My cmnt: Never, ever vote democrat. When that economic illiterate O’Bozo took office he immediately instituted policies that affected the economy adversely. To hide his failures he used the taxpayer to bail out banks and other lending institutions that had been forced by “woke” policies to create mortgages for people (mostly of color) who had no business receiving mortgages when anyone with a brain knew (they often did not even have jobs) they would never be able to pay them back. Hence a-holes like Barney Frank and other democrats caused the subprime loan market to exist and then implode. This started the Great Obama Recession which cost me my job of 30 years and millions of others to lose theirs also.

My cmnt: Along came President Trump, who does understand economics, and he proceeds to create the best economy in 60 years only to have the democrats unleash Covid-19 and not only destroy the Trump Miracle but allowed them to illegally change voting laws, mass mail millions of fraudulent ballots, and then mass collect them and illegally count them in the wee-witching hours of the morning on the day AFTER the election.

My cmnt: Fast forward to now. So the democrats elect this senile, stupid, mentally incompetent jackass called O’Biden and in just two short years (with the help of a sycophant democrat Congress) manage to create the worse economy in 60 years that rivals the previous worse economy of that democrat dolt Jimmy Carter. And along with democrat incompetent economic polices always comes massive layoffs. Hence this article.

Amazon.com Inc. said it would cut 9,000 more corporate jobs across units that include its profitable cloud-computing and advertising businesses, a sign that the company’s cost-cutting is extending into all aspects of its operations as technology giants continue to slash spending.

Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a statement that the company added a significant number of employees in recent years, a step he defended as necessary given what was happening in Amazon’s business at the time.

“Given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and head count,” Mr. Jassy said, noting that the layoffs come after Amazon completed its annual planning process.

The company previously said it was slashing 18,000 positions.

Waves of job cuts have roiled the tech industry. Amazon is the latest company to enact more job cuts than previously expected. Last week, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. said it would cut roughly 10,000 jobs over the coming months, its second wave of mass layoffs. 

Amazon invested heavily in expanding its head count during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic as people shifted much of their shopping online. The company added about 800,000 employees, mostly at its hundreds of warehouses, between the end of 2019 and end of 2021. When demand began to fall off as consumers returned to bricks-and-mortar stores, Amazon cut back in areas of the business that were unprofitable and froze hiring.

Mr. Jassy said the 9,000 additional job cuts weren’t announced earlier because some teams hadn’t completed assessments that determined which positions needed to be eliminated. He said the cuts would be completed by mid- to late April. Amazon had about 1.5 million employees worldwide at the end of December. It employed about 350,000 corporate workers before its recent layoffs.

Since 2022, layoff tallies at tech companies have reached about 300,000 workers, according to Layoffs.fyi, a site tracking job cuts in the industry.

Amazon has been passing through one of the toughest stretches of its history. The company recently finished laying off 18,000 corporate employees, or about 5% of the total. Those cuts were concentrated in its devices business and recruiting and retail operations.

In addition to the announced job cuts, Amazon has made other changes that will likely lead to higher voluntary turnover than in recent years. The company isn’t adjusting its stock-heavy compensation plans, meaning that many employees will effectively have their pay cut this year, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Amazon recently announced a return-to-office plan beginning next month that has not been well received by some employees.

The job cuts to Amazon’s cloud-computing unit come as cloud customers have looked to save money on infrastructure and software costs, according to Rick Villars, an analyst with IDC. At the same time, new growth opportunities for cloud companies, such as in artificial intelligence, are not yet making a significant impact, he said.

“With Amazon being one of the biggest players in the cloud arena, it’s going to be visible in their numbers,” Mr. Villars said. Cloud spending in the U.S. grew by 27% in the fourth quarter, lower than the 31% average growth rate of the previous four quarters, according to market analytics firm Synergy Research Group.

Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer, that month said the company had seen a continued slowdown in AWS spending as customers have looked to rein in costs. Amazon’s advertising business, which has become an increasingly meaningful sales driver, also saw a slowdown in the fourth quarter, recording a 19% increase in sales. AWS, Mr. Olsavsky said, would likely experience challenges “in at least the next couple of quarters.”

AWS posted $22.8 billion in operating income last year. The rest of the company combined had an operating loss of $10.6 billion.

Amazon has also cut back on projects and pulled back investment in certain areas. Earlier this month, it confirmed it was pausing construction on a massive corporate real estate complex near Washington, D.C., that it calls its second headquarters, or HQ2. While the first phase of its project is nearly complete, Amazon had originally planned to break ground on the second phase of the project, which includes three 22-story office buildings, during the first quarter of 2023.

On the same day it revealed its plans for HQ2, it also said it would close eight of its cashierless Amazon Go stores throughout Seattle, New York City and San Francisco on April 1. The closings add to other struggles Amazon has had in physical retail, including closing its physical book stores in 2022. The company has also in recent months canceled certain projects such as its AmazonSmile charitable program.

Amazon grew rapidly during the pandemic, bolstered by overwhelming demand for its e-commerce services. But like many of its tech peers, it has struggled with growth recently. The company in February warned it may have a period of slower growth, including in its profitable AWS business, which in the fourth quarter saw its lowest growth rate since Amazon began to separate the segment’s performance in earnings.

—Dana Mattioli contributed to this article.