Layoffs are expected in multiple locations and departments and will affect all levels of employees.

FREMONT, CA: As the retail and cloud computing giant retrench after going on a hiring binge during the pandemic, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) plans to let go of up to 20,000 employees across the company in the upcoming months, including employees in distribution centres, technology staff, and corporate executives roughly twice as many as previously reported.

According to sources, staff at all levels will likely be impacted with firsthand knowledge of the situation who asked to remain anonymous. Amazon employees are ranked from level 1 through level 7, and all levels of staff will likely be affected. Amazon would implement significant layoffs in mid-November, citing sources who claimed that as many as 10,000 workers would be let go.

However, company managers have recently been instructed to look for employee issues with work performance as part of a plan to fire roughly 20,000 people. Twenty thousand employees equate to roughly six per cent of corporate staff and 1.3 per cent of Amazon's 1.5 million-person workforce, which includes hourly and worldwide distribution centre employees.

Employees will get a 24-hour notice and severance pay in accordance with their firm contracts, corporate personnel have been informed. There is a sense of anxiety among employees in the organisation as the news has gotten out. The company's largest-ever employee loss would result from the layoffs.

The layoffs are being made throughout the company; no specific division or location has been mentioned. They were informed that this was due to overheating during the pandemic and the need for cost-cutting as the company's financials have been dropping.

Following the New York Times report, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy confirmed layoffs were taking place in a public statement to staff members on November 17.

As leaders continue to make adjustments, further role reductions will occur as the yearly planning process continues into the following year. Early in 2023, those decisions will be communicated to the organisations and employees who will be impacted Jassy wrote in the message that the organisation would be extending a voluntary reduction offer to some employees in the People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organisation and that the company had already announced that layoffs would occur in the Devices and Books businesses. Sources have revealed that the company's robotics team has been reduced in size.

They haven't determined exactly how many other roles will be impacted, but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when they have the details nailed down, an Amazon spokesperson said in response to a question. The company did not comment on reports from sources that it is looking to lay off 20,000 employees.