Amazon to lay off around 1,000 staff in India: report

E-commerce company Amazon plans to lay off around 1,000 employees in India as part of its biggest retrenchment exercise across the globe, news agency PTI reported.

"The decision to eliminate 18,000 job roles across the globe will impact about 1,000 employees in India," the report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Wednesday announced the e-commerce giant will lay off over 18,000 employees, starting January 18. In an email to staff, he cited "uncertain economy" and "rapid hiring" as reasons behind the job cuts.


"Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we're sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles," he said in the statement to his staff.

The company had laid off about 10,000 staff in November.

According to the PTI report, the company has around 1 lakh employees in India and the decision will impact 1 per cent of staff in the country.

As of December 31, 2021, Amazon employed approximately 16,08,000 full-time and part-time staff.

ET had reported in November the etailer was looking to cut jobs in India as well. The etailer shut its relatively smaller businesses in India like food delivery, wholesale distribution, Amazon Academy,

The layoffs would be across engineering and other departments, similar to the global process followed by Amazon, the report said.

In an interview with ET in December, Amazon's consumer business country manager for India-- Manish Tiwary--had said the firm was only relooking at experiments here and not shutting businesses and that it remains committed to the local market.

Tiwary also added that the local arm of the Seattle-based firm would double down on its investments in its business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, pharmacy, grocery and social commerce in 2023.

The layoff announcement is in line with the approach followed by a majority of tech companies, which have resorted to job cuts to survive the economic headwinds. Firms are aiming to reduce expenses in the face of inflation and rising interest rates.