As Amazon embarked on the largest round of layoffs in company history, Beth Galetti, the company's HR leader, urged employees to show support for each other.
It was her second email of Wednesday, following a longer note explaining why Amazon was cutting so many jobs. Still, some employees were upset about leadership's lack of clarity, and instead voluntarily scrambled to put together a list of teams Wednesday's layoffs affected, sources told Insider.
Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, announced earlier this month that the company would cut 18,000 jobs, mostly in the HR and retail businesses. That was after members of the press reported roughly 10,000 job cuts across retail and Alexa voice-assistant divisions starting in November.
In her email, Galetti reiterated that most of the layoffs will affect the retail division — Amazon stores — and HR — the people-experience and technology departments. Here's the full copy of her email:
Title: Supporting our colleagues through role reductions
All,
Today we took the difficult step of reducing roles across Amazon. While several teams are impacted, the majority of role eliminations are in our WW Amazon Stores business and our People Experience & Technology (PXT) organization.
Conversations with impacted employees took place around the world today, and this morning, Pacific Time, notification messages were sent to all impacted employees in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica. We are providing impacted employees with a number of resources, and PXT leaders will host country-specific information sessions for the U.S. and Canada today while leaders are setting up meetings with each affected team member. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees. In China, we will notify employees after the Chinese New Year.
Our priority in the coming days is supporting those who are affected. To help with the transition, we are providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional benefits as applicable by country, and external job placement support.
Please continue to show the support and care that I so often witness here at Amazon. This is a very difficult time, so we encourage you to reach out to My HR with questions and remember that our Employees Assistance Program (EAP) is available 24/7 for free and confidential help.
Beth
