Amazon is planning to lay off about 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as soon as this week, according to the New York Times, which cited people with knowledge of the situation.
The e-commerce giant’s devices unit, which houses Alexa the voice assistant, as well as its retail division and human resources, will be the focus of the job cuts, the report said. It was also noted that the total number of layoffs remains fluid.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
As of December 31 last year, Amazon had more than 1.6 million full-time and part-time employees and had recently said it would freeze hiring to corporate workforce for the next few months.
The news comes just weeks after Amazon warned of a slowdown in growth for the busy holiday season when it generates the highest sales, saying consumers and businesses had less money to spend due to rising prices.
Amazon is the latest US company to make deep cuts to its employee base to brace for a potential economic downturn.
Last week, Facebook-parent Meta Platforms said it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce, to rein in costs. Others include Elon Musk-owned Twitter, Microsoft and Snap.
Amazon employs around 5,000 people in Ireland.
The company announced earlier this year that the opening of a new warehouse and processing centre in Dublin would result in the creation of 500 new jobs.
Amazon opened its first office in Ireland in September 2004.
In April 2006, it opened a customer service centre in Cork and in November 2007, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its first infrastructure region outside of the US in Ireland.