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Amazon, the giant e-commerce company, has 1.5 million employees around the world. It recently announced that it will cut 18,000 jobs but did not say in which countries.
It seems that most of the job cuts will be in the human resources division and consumer retail division.
Andy Jassy, a boss at Amazon, said that the company hired too many people too quickly over the last few years.
According to one Amazon worker, the employees are not allowed to talk about the job cuts, not even at work.
Business boomed for Amazon during the COVID-19 pandemic because many people stayed home and shopped online. However, the company’s sales have been decreasing.
Neil Saunders, an analyst, says that Amazon had hired 743,000 new people since 2019. He thinks that Amazon didn’t understand the pandemic situation correctly.
Other big tech companies like Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), and Salesforce also announced big job cuts.
Meta wants to cut 13% of its employees, which is about 11,000 people.
In addition to cutting employees, Amazon will also cut projects like Echo (also called Alexa) and delivery robots. These services do not currently earn money for Amazon.
People say that in Silicon Valley, companies sometimes hire and pay good workers a lot of money, even if they do not need them right away. This is to prevent those workers from going to work for competitors. However, this practice is no longer possible for large tech companies.
Amazon employees that will be cut will be told by 18 January.
Vocabulary
- E-commerce – online shopping; buying and selling goods or services over the internet
- Employee – a person who is paid to work for a company or organization
- Announce – share information openly; to tell the public; to make a statement; to report
- Cut – to reduce the amount or number of something; to let go; to fire
- Human resources – the department in a company that is responsible for hiring, training, and managing employees
- Division – a major section of an organization or company; department; branch; sector
- Consumer – customer; user; shopper
- Retail – the business of selling goods or services directly to customers, rather than to businesses
- According to – as ‘someone’ said; as stated by ‘someone’; in the opinion of ‘someone’
- Allow – permit; let; to give permission; OK
- Boom – a sudden increase or growth; a quick and large increase in sales
- Pandemic – when a disease or sickness goes all over the country or world
- Analyst – a person who studies and evaluates information or data to understand a situation or problem
- Hire – to pay someone to do a job; to employ; to give someone a job; to take a person into a company
- Tech – technology
- In addition – furthermore; additionally; plus; moreover; also
- Delivery – the act or process of bringing goods, letters, etc., to a place or person; transport
- Earn – to get something (usually money) because you worked, sold something, or helped someone; receive
- Prevent – to stop; to keep from happening; to put an end to
- Competitor – challenger; opponent; rival; enemy; opposition
- Practice – policy; procedure; method; routine; way of doing something
Quiz
Discussion Questions
- Why have Amazon and other large tech companies decided to cut employees? Do you know any other businesses that are also cutting employees?
- How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Amazon’s sales, and why did the company hire 743,000 new people since 2019?
- Why is the practice of hiring and paying good workers even if they are not immediately needed no longer possible for large tech companies? What’s your opinion of this practice?
Original Story
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