Thousands of Amazon employees will be left in limbo for two weeks while they wait to discover if they're being laid off.
In a memo to staff on Wednesday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced plans to lay off 18,000 workers — the largest round of cuts in the organization's history — citing "uncertain economic conditions."
He said that the company planned to inform impacted employees starting on January 18 and news of the layoffs had been leaked.
He said: "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 the memo, Jassy said most of the layoffs would hit the company's Amazon Stores and People Experience and Technology Solutions divisions. The cuts represent around 5% of Amazon's corporate ranks, per The Wall Street Journal.
A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment beyond the memo when reached for comment.
In November of last year, The New York Times reported that Amazon planned to lay off 10,000 workers but since then, the number of cuts appears to have grown.
A wave of layoffs has hit dozens of major US companies over the last few months. Workers in the tech industry have been particularly affected, with giants such as Twitter, Meta, and Netflix all cutting headcounts.
