Amazon’s new layoffs brings job cuts to 27,000. The Idaho impact? Here’s what we know
Amazon will slash another 9,000 roles, the company announced, adding to a mounting list of layoffs as the tech sector’s golden age fades.
The job losses build on the 18,000 Amazon previously announced, bringing the total to 27,000, and stand in a stark contrast to the past decade of explosive growth for the technology industry, and for Amazon in particular.
Amazon operates a 2.7-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Nampa that opened in late 2020 and employed about 2,500 people, according to previous reporting by the Idaho Statesman. It is the retailer’s largest warehouse in Idaho.
The company also has a delivery station in Boise, an AMXL station for heavy, bulky items in Meridian, and a Whole Foods Market in Boise.
Amazon reported in 2021 that it had more than 3,500 employees in Idaho and would be increasing that number to over 4,000, making it one of the state’s largest employers. The company says on its website that it had created over 4,500 full- and part-time jobs and more than 2,000 indirect jobs in Idaho by the end of 2021.
A spokesperson for the company was not able to provide more information on the number of employees Amazon now has in Idaho when reached by a Statesman reporter Monday. The spokesperson also could not say how many workers in Idaho are affected by the latest job cuts.
Amazon said Monday that this round of cuts would take place in some of its biggest moneymaking businesses, including its cloud-computing division Amazon Web Services and its advertising unit, as well as in the video game streaming business Twitch and other corporate divisions.
The Seattle company boomed during the early days of the pandemic, when consumers leaned into online ordering. But growth has waned for Amazon and fellow tech giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which have all have announced massive layoffs in the past several months. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
It’s a significant reversal for the industry, which some had perceived as “recession-proof.” But others say the companies grew too big, too fast and needed to rein in spending. The layoffs have also hit start-ups and smaller firms, and funding has been less accessible as the sector struggles.
Most of Amazon’s 1.5 million employees work in its warehouses, but the company had more than 330,000 corporate and tech employees around the world before it started cutting tens of thousands of white-collar workers.
Amazon has curtailed its growth in other areas as well – earlier this month, the company announced it was pausing construction on its much anticipated second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. It has also closed, canceled, or delayed dozens of other development projects around the country.
The company recently introduced a mandatory return to office, which frustrated thousands of employees who joined an internal Slack group to protest the decision.
CEO Andy Jassy said the latest cuts were determined after divisions decided on their priorities and outlined investments for the next year in an annual planning process.
“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,” he wrote in an announcement Monday. “The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible.”
Teams are still making decisions about which exact roles will be cut, he wrote, and laid-off workers will be notified after that process finishes in mid- or late April.
The Washington Post’s Caroline O’Donovan and Idaho Statesman’s Angela Palermo contributed.
This story was originally published March 20, 2023 at 5:25 PM.