AMERICAN online retail giant Amazon plans to lay off more than 18,000 workers, the company's CEO Andy Jassy confirmed.

After news of the layoffs leaked to the public, Jassy confirmed the speculation in a post on Amazon's website, saying that talks with affected workers will begin on January 18, and that they will be provided with severance pay and support in finding another job.

Most layoffs in online retail departments

The online retail (Amazon Stores) and human resources departments will be affected the most by the layoffs, he said.

The Seattle-based company began laying off workers in its devices division in November, and a source then told Reuters that the target was to lay off 10,000 workers.

Amazon employs more than 1.5 million workers globally, is the second-largest private employer in the U.S., and is preparing for a likely slowdown in business growth as rising inflation forces companies and consumers to cut spending.

Eliminating more jobs than other large companies

As announced, Amazon will eliminate more jobs than other large companies, marking a swift turnaround for the retailer, which in previous months doubled the upper limit of base pay at the company in order to compete more effectively for talent, Reuters writes.

Namely, ahead of the expected recession and due to weaker business results, layoffs had already been announced in earlier months by, among others, Meta, Facebook's owner, which said it would lay off more than 11,000 workers, Microsoft announced it would lay off about a thousand, and the social platform Twitter has also already begun mass layoffs.

Source: Index.hr