A person familiar with the firm said that Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) still intended to eliminate approximately 10,000 jobs, including those in its retail division and human resources. However, the company said on Wednesday that it had let go of some employees in its devices section.
The announcement, which was made by Amazon for the first time since media outlets like Reuters broke the news of its layoff plans on Monday, signalling a dramatic change for a business known for creating jobs and gave more context to the most recent layoffs that have been plaguing the technology sector.
The business has opted to merge teams in its devices division, which popularised speakers that users can control verbally, according to Amazon CEO Dave Limp in a blog post. It gave notice to the workers it fired on Tuesday.
Although it was unclear how broadly consumers had adopted it for duties other than checking the news and weather, the online store sought to make Alexa, the voice assistant that drives the devices it sells, omnipresent and available to complete any shopping order.
The Alexa project, which was motivated by the talking computer in the science fiction television series Star Trek, attracted 10,000 employees by 2019.
Amazon boasted sales of more than 100 million Alexa devices at the time, a number it hasn’t updated publicly since. Later, business founder Jeff Bezos said that Alexa devices were frequently offered at a discount and occasionally even below cost.
Amazon’s reductions stand in stark contrast to its attempts a few months ago to quadruple its basic pay threshold in a bid to attract personnel more aggressively.
