Amazon is reportedly engaged in a round of layoffs after combining Amazon Prime Now and AmazonFresh. According to a report in Yahoo! Finance, the layoffs are taking place in the company’s Seattle, Washington headquarters.
By merging the two services, Yahoo! Finance reported it could streamline deliveries for Whole Foods Market. The affected employees were given 60 days to find another job within Amazon before having to leave.
“As part of our annual planning process, we are making headcount adjustments across the company – small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others,” an Amazon representative told Yahoo! Finance. The initiative to combine Amazon Prime Now and AmazonFresh is reportedly slated to be finished by the end of 2018.
Earlier this week, The Seattle Times reported that the eCommerce giant is laying off several hundred employees in what is seen as a rare move by the company. In addition to the several hundred being laid off at the Seattle headquarters, hundreds more are being let go at the company’s global operations. That may seem like a lot, but given Amazon’s massive size and employee headcount, the layoffs are modest compared to what has happened at other large companies. Two people familiar with the matter told the paper the layoffs are mainly focused on Amazon’s consumer retail business.
In recent years, Amazon has grown its employee base to more than 40,000 from just 5,000 back in 2010. The Times noted that the growth of the company during the past two years has resulted in units being over budget, with teams within the organization having too many employees. Amazon has put in place hiring freezes for several of the company’s groups.
