Amazon has started firing employees starting today. According to an anonymous source that got in touch with AIM, the Andy Jassy-led company laid off the Amazon Robotics team. Jamie Zhang, a developer working with the team, posted on LinkedIn yesterday expressing shock towards the sudden decision. Zhang mentioned that he was working with the company’s AWS business to build continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) pipelines. 

A few days ago, Amazon announced that it was implementing a hiring freeze amidst a rocky macroeconomic environment along with a considerable slowdown in the company’s core retail business as consumers return to shopping in physical stores. 

“Amazon’s hiring freeze sends a clear and unfortunate signal that the mood music of the retail and consumer economy is shifting. The heady days of growth have now ended and have given away to an environment in which more caution is necessary to protect the bottom line,” Neil Saunders, GlobalData managing director, stated. 

While there are no details around Amazon India yet, there are fears that a spillover effect might be seen in other regions. 

Even though the revenue for the e-commerce giant grew by 15% in its third-quarter results, the numbers were less than Wall Street projections, thereby causing its stock to fall by 13%. This is the second time in 2022 that Amazon’s results have disappointed market expectations leading to a double-digit percentage selloff in shares. In April, after the release of its second-quarter results, the company’s stock fell by 14% due to a weak forecast. 

Tech companies around the world are fighting the economic slowdown as consumer spending loses momentum and higher interest rates evince a looming US recession. A report by the Wall Street Journal has also stated that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is planning “large-scale layoffs” and could start the process today. 

On November 4, Twitter, which is heading into a second workweek under Tesla CEO Elon Musk, laid off around 3,700 employees.