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Amazon Is Cutting Hundreds of Corporate Jobs (techcrunch.com)
According to a Seattle Times report, Amazon is laying off hundreds of corporate workers in its Seattle headquarters and elsewhere. "The corporate cuts come after an eight-year hiring spree, taking the company from 5,000 in 2010 to 40,000 in its Seattle headquarters and gobbling up several retail businesses throughout the country," reports TechCrunch. From the report: However, according to the report, Amazon's rising employee numbers over the last two years left some departments over budget and with too many staff on hand. In the last few months, the company implemented hiring freezes to stem the flow of new workers, cutting the number of open positions in half from the 3,500 listed last Summer. The layoffs will mainly focus on Amazon's Seattle office, but there have already been cuts in some of its retail subsidiaries in other parts of the country, such as the Las Vegas-based online footwear retailer Zappos, which had to lay off 30 people recently. And the company behind Diapers.com, Quidsi, had to cut more than 250 jobs a year ago. The moves suggest Amazon may be trying to rein in spending and consolidate some of its retail businesses.
They are being replaced by "Corporate Robots" - marginally safer than "incorporated robots".
I thought Amazon was going around the country to find a place for they're second headquarters where they promised 50,000 jobs.
So are they cutting a bunch of middle managers and these 50k jobs are going to be all tech centric?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Studies seem to show that it is very hard to accurately assess employees during the interview process. The only effective way of keeping quality up is to fire under-performers. If Amazon hasn't been doing this regularly enough for eight years, then I could see why this could be long overdue. To some extent you can find useful work for under-performers to do, but as some point you just get too many of them.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I have been offered a number of opportunities to interview for Amazon, but have not interviewed with them at all, for concerns of this nature and other reasons.
There's no reason for me to put my head on the chopping block for such a large, impersonal business where I've heard one too many stories about how they drive their engineers to work long hours at a level of high performance that seems unsustainable long-term. I'll keep my quality-focused job instead and not worry about burnout and layoffs.
They all went to the poor and middle class and left nothing for those who need it most: the unfortunate fabulously wealthy and the humble megacorp.
Ahh the poor. "... those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies."
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Or rent and food.
well as someone who worked there they litterly hire anyone with a degree. there turnovers are way to insane for them to be picky. the issue is with the hire ups they have way to many that are the same job renamed 12 different times.
yep a single guy with no kids or gf cant even afford rents these days.
What, pray tell, do tax cuts have to do with firing useless people?
Sorry, Amazon has no obligation to gibyoudat just because you're incompetent.
well as someone who worked there they litterly hire anyone with a degree.
Just curious - what was your degree in? Please tell me it was literature.
a result of normal business cycles. The holiday season has passed and is over for now. But it will ramp back up and there maybe a hiring increase again.
;)
Just my 2 cents
If the are moving the HQ, then I'd image some fat trimming anyways.
If you have ~40,000 employees, laying off hundreds seems like the normal hiring process. People come and go. Also, if you want to get rid of business groups who under perform or are not the focus of the business anymore, you remove those jobs. Then hire in other areas. Common practice in large organizations. Not sure how this really is a story. I'm not even touching on the seasonal aspect of their business.
On the other hand, if they were laying off say 10% of peeps in Seattle, then you have a story.
maybe he got his degree in proving the Caine-Hackman theory
sounds like a real garbage degree.
Well hopefully they are reducing their H1B visa workers first.
If you're working in tech in Seattle, with no kids, gf, or wife and have no money, then you're also doing it wrong. Trade that trendy little apartment in that trendy little neighborhood for a house you can afford to buy in Pierce county and take the commuter train to work.
:).
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Rich Hillaryists sure do have contempt for ordinary working people.
Just ask IBM - They reduce costs to prop up stock value.
It likely has NOTHING to due with profits or efficiency. The internal amazonian "old fart tool" uses DynamoDB and is about to run our of table space.
hahaha. Amazon is the devil! and Jeffy Bozo reminds me of that bald obnoxious fella from The Princess Bride.
Um isn't Amazon looking to move it's HQ soon? Makes sense to go through a few boxes to get rid of what you don't need before you drag it to the new pad...
I'd guess this is all part of the same corporate process.