Jobs At Amazon India Could Be Eliminated Amid Global Layoffs

As part of a global strategy to deal with sluggish sales, Amazon is set to carry out a layoff exercise in India that could potentially damage at least a few hundred employees across divisions.

As reported by international media on Monday, the Jeff Bezos-founded digital giant, which has a number of businesses in India, including e-commerce, data centers under Amazon Web Services, and Prime Video, is anticipated to lay off 10,000 corporate and technological staff.

Although the precise number of affected employees in India has not yet been determined, the sources mentioned above claimed that considering the scale of Amazon’s personnel here, which is thought to exceed 100,000, the cuts may be “deeper” than a few hundred.

One of them said, “The retrenchment is happening here (in India), and discussions are taking place regarding the numbers.” 

“There is a sense that it might be relatively higher as compared to peers like Facebook, which is owned by Meta, and others where India was not significantly affected,”

The local division of the Seattle-based company claimed in May that it created nearly 1.1 million jobs overall, including contract and indirect work.

In addition to its main offices in Bengaluru, Amazon India also has staff members working from coworking spaces in several Indian towns.

An executive at a Bengaluru-based recruiting services company claimed that the country’s Amazon layoff programme poses a threat to hundreds of workers, particularly in the shared services, back-office, and retail operations.

Up until Tuesday afternoon, an email submitted to Amazon India went unanswered.

According to the person who was quoted above, the layoffs would affect engineering and other departments and would follow a similar global procedure to Amazon’s.

The downsizing at Amazon will begin this week, with a focus on business and technical jobs, according to a report published on Monday by The New York Times. About 3% of its white-collar workers are anticipated to be impacted by the exercise.

A much lower portion of India’s entire workforce may be impacted by the exercise.

Taking a cautious approach as the Covid-induced boost for internet businesses wanes and worries about a global economic slowdown mount, Amazon’s layoff exercise is consistent with big technology enterprises cutting their employees amid a dismal macroeconomic environment.

This would be Amazon’s biggest employment layoff in the US, comparable to Facebook parent Meta’s announcement last week to eliminate 11,000 positions. 

Following the takeover of the firm by internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, Twitter likewise reduced its staff by 50%.

The parent company of Singapore-based online retailer Shopee is likewise downsizing by 7,000 employees, or 10%. Shopee abruptly left India in March of this year.