It's the latest round of layoffs from one of the biggest companies in the world
Amazon $AMZN is letting go of more people. Fortune reports that that the company laid off 100 people from its customer service team. One of them told the magazine that they routinely pulled 12- and 16-hour days to get their jobs done — and their hard work was rewarded by their computers suddenly being shut off in the middle of the workday.
“As part of a shift in how our Worldwide Customer Service organization is structured, we’ve identified a relatively small number of roles that are no longer required,” the company said a statement shared with Quartz.
Amazon has announced a bunch of rounds of layoffs this year. In January it laid off people from its Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios film and television division. In February, it laid off people from its Amazon Health Services division. In April, it let go of workers in both the very profitable Amazon Web Services division and developers for its nixed Just Walk Out division.
In a March company blog post last year, CEO Andy Jassy said that two “phases” of layoffs would cost 27,000 people their jobs. Amazon’s most recent annual report said that it employed more than 1.5 million people worldwide on a part- or full-time basis.
“For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount,” he said. “This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole. However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount.”
For the most recent quarter, Amazon announced that it had $10 billion in profit on $145 billion in revenue. The company’s stock is up more than 22% for the year and near a record high. On the earnings call to discuss the numbers, Jassy said, “I’m super grateful to all our employees for their hard work and ingenuity.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the timing of an Amazon layoffs announcement. The company said it was laying off 27,000 people last March, not this March.
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