The tech giant is set to lay off workers in its Amazon Web Services unit as part of a restructuring strategy.
Amazon’s cloud computing unit will cut hundreds of jobs in sales, marketing, and its physical stores technology team, the firm announced on Wednesday.
The move comes just a day after Amazon shared plans to remove its self-checkout system, called Just Walk Out, in its US supermarkets. Part of the Amazon Web Services unit (AWS) was responsible for overseeing the cashierless tills.
“We’ve identified a few targeted areas of the organisation we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact,” said an AWS spokesperson in a statement.
Amazon added: “We didn’t make these decisions lightly, and we’re committed to supporting the employees throughout their transition to new roles in and outside of Amazon.”
The AWS unit accounts for 14% of the firm’s total revenue although the division’s growth has been slowing in recent years.
AWS revenue came in at $24.20 billion (€22.28 billion) in the final three months of last year, an increase of 13% compared to the same period a year earlier.
In the final quarter of 2022, year-on-year growth was more significant, coming in at 20%.
As interest rates spiked across the world during the post-pandemic period, several experts were concerned about the effect of economic uncertainty on cloud software spending.
With inflation now falling, there is a cautious optimism, but AWS has yet to see a rapid rise in its growth rate – and it is also trailing behind cloud systems from competitors including Microsoft and Alphabet.
Amazon has said that job losses will predominantly affect its Seattle base, although some international roles will also be cut.
In 2022 and 2023, Amazon cut more than 27,000 jobs across all areas of the company, trimming down on extra staff who were hired during the pandemic.
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