Hundreds of jobs cut in cloud computing unit

AmazonGoogle’s cloud computing division is laying off hundreds of employees across its technology and sales and marketing units in its physical stores, the company confirmed Wednesday.

“We have identified a few targeted areas of the organization that we need to streamline in order to continue to focus our efforts on key strategic areas that we believe will have maximum impact,” an AWS spokesperson said in a statement. . “We have not made these decisions lightly and are committed to supporting employees as they transition to new roles within and outside of Amazon.”

The reductions were first reported by GeekWire.

Amazon’s lucrative AWS unit has seen sales growth slow in recent quarters as companies cut cloud spending amid rising interest rates. Amazon executives expressed some optimism in February when they said the market was starting to show signs of reacceleration.

The cuts to AWS’s store technology team come after Amazon announced it would remove cashierless checkout systems at its US Fresh stores. The AWS unit includes teams overseeing cashierless technology, called Just Walk Out, as well as its Dash smart carts and Amazon One’s palm-based payment technology. The stores technology team was taken out of Amazon’s retail group and integrated into its cloud computing division in 2022.

The AWS spokesperson said the company decided to shrink the stores technology division “due to a broader strategic shift in the use of certain apps in Amazon-owned stores as well as third-party stores “.

Amazon continues to reduce its workforce after more than a year of massive layoffs. Starting in late 2022 and continuing through 2023, Amazon made the largest layoffs in its history, eliminating more than 27,000 jobs across nearly every part of the company. So far this year, Amazon has laid off employees at its Twitch, Audible, Buy with Prime, Prime Video and MGM Studios units.

In the United States, employees will continue to receive their wages and benefits for at least 60 days, and they will be entitled to severance pay.

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