Amazon continues to struggle with a slowdown in online sales growth and is bracing for a possible recession. Against this background, the company, as previously reported, will reduce the staff, laying off 18 thousand people, which will be the largest job cut in its history.

The cuts began last year and initially affected Amazon Devices and Services, which develops the Alexa voice assistant and Echo smart speakers. New large-scale cuts will affect the retail division and the company's human resources department. Amazon will cut only about 1% of its total workforce, which includes hundreds of thousands of warehouse and delivery workers. If we consider only corporate staff, whose number is about 350 thousand people, then the layoffs will affect more than 6% of Amazon employees worldwide.

“Amazon has experienced uncertain and difficult economic conditions in the past, and we will continue to do so. These changes will help us realize our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo.

Amazon has spent much of the past year trying to mitigate a sharp slowdown in online sales as consumers reverted to their lifestyle and shopped online less in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Amazon had to delay the opening of some warehouses, as well as stop recruiting employees in the retail division, and later in other divisions. These measures were not enough, so the e-commerce giant is forced to cut staff.