Amazon to lay off 18,000 employees: Decision due to fears of recession

Amazon is going to lay off more than 18,000 employees. In the last few years, Amazon had recruited a large number of employees, but now the employees are being reduced amid fears of recession. Many teams will be affected by this layoff. Most of the employees are being removed from Amazon Store and People, Experience and Technology (PXT) team.
Earlier in November last year, the company announced the layoff of 10,000 employees. Amazon had more than 1.5 million employees as of the end of September, making it one of the largest US employers. After this decision of Amazon, its stock saw a rise of 2%. Investors feel that this move will increase the profits of the company.
Amazon CEO Andy said, 'We are providing a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits and external job placement support to those affected by this layoff.' He also said, 'I am very grateful for the contributions of those affected by these cuts. And with those who will continue the journey ahead with us, I look forward to partnering with them to make life better and easier for customers every day.'
He said, 'We usually do this kind of communication only after talking to the affected people. But one of our partners leaked this information externally, so we decided it would be better to share this information first. We want to communicate with the affected employees from January 18.
In the past, it was also said in the Wall Street Journal report that the company has asked the employees working in some of its unprofitable units to find jobs elsewhere. This is because many of the company's projects may be closed, or suspended soon.
The company has already announced a freeze on hiring. The company said in a note, 'We are facing an unusual macroeconomic environment. Within this environment, we seek to balance our hiring and investments. This is not the first time, we have faced challenging economies many times before.
The company is promoting the use of robots in many units to do work. About 3 quarters of the packets that are delivered currently pass through some kind of robotic system. Ty Brady, chief of Amazon Robotics, had said that packaging could be 100% robotic systems in the next 5 years. He indicated that in the future, robots will replace human employees, but it will take a long time.