Amazon cuts 4,000 jobs in the second quarter, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement pay off

Amazon’s financial report has just been released, and all indicators have exceeded outside expectations. Its stock price has also soared, with after-hours trading surging by more than 9%. Its stock price has rebounded by more than 50% from its low point this year.

However, despite its impressive performance, its strategic planning still seems to be relatively cautious , especially in terms of recruitment.

Data shows that at the end of the second quarter of this year, Amazon had approximately 1.46 million employees, including office staff and warehouse workers. This number is nearly 4,000 less than the data released three months ago.

Although the number of employees is still decreasing, the downward trend has slowed down significantly. Data from the first quarter of this year showed that its number of employees dropped sharply by 76,000 from the previous quarter, mainly due to several large-scale layoffs at that time.

Data shows that the first quarter of 2022 was when Amazon was at its largest, with its employee number reaching a peak of 1.62 million. However, it then went on a downward trend due to various factors, and the company carried out multiple rounds of layoffs to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said on a conference call with reporters that the company's layoffs in offices and technology departments could be partially reflected in its second-quarter earnings.

In addition, he said, Amazon is now increasingly using contractors in its logistics and distribution operations, and these workers are not included in the data Amazon releases publicly.

“At this point, we are still holding off on hiring, except for some very important roles. So that helped our financial performance this quarter. We are still very focused on our cost structure in all areas, and we will continue to focus on that until we get back to our previous levels of profitability and return on investment.”

In January, Amazon announced 18,000 layoffs, the largest layoff in the company's history. In March, the company announced another 9,000 layoffs, bringing the total to 27,000, with the affected departments mainly concentrated in offices and technical staff at its Seattle headquarters and other branches around the world.

It is understood that Amazon has more than 65,000 business and technology employees in the Seattle area, and more than 350,000 business and technology employees worldwide.

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Layoffs

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