Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on Wednesday that it has cut several hundred roles in sales, marketing, and technology, following a series of job cuts by its parent company, Amazon.com.
The affected positions include several hundred roles in AWS’ sales, marketing, and global services division, as well as the physical stores technology team, according to a statement from the cloud-computing arm of Amazon.
An AWS spokesperson stated via email, “We’ve identified a few targeted areas of the organization we need to streamline.”
In recent months, Amazon has laid off hundreds of employees across various divisions, including Prime Video, its healthcare business, and the Alexa voice assistant unit, as major technology firms continue to implement significant job cuts that began in 2022 and extend into 2024.
According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 57,000 workers have been laid off across 229 companies so far this year.
Amazon’s job cuts in 2022 and 2023 totaled more than 27,000, as the tech industry faced the consequences of overhiring during the pandemic.
The reduction in roles at AWS’ 60,000-strong sales, marketing, and global services division is believed to be part of a broader reorganization under sales chief Matt Garman, as reported by The Information, which first broke the news.
Despite experiencing growth slowdowns last year due to economic uncertainty, Amazon’s cloud business has shown signs of stabilization, contributing to the company’s ability to surpass quarterly revenue expectations in February.
However, Amazon faces stiff competition from rival Microsoft, which has gained ground in the cloud computing market and is leading in the race to monetize generative artificial intelligence through its investment in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
