Digital commerce giant Amazon plans to massively lay off about 10,000 employees from positions in management and other technology departments. The trial will begin within a week, a source familiar with the matter said. If indeed the cuts mentioned above, as originally reported by The New York Times, occur, they will be the largest in the history of the American technology group. In particular, they will correspond to approximately 3% of Amazon’s workforce. The exact number may vary as individual divisions of the group reassess their priorities, the source told Reuters news agency. Notably, the group founded by billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is also joining the chorus of tech giants drastically reducing their workforce. Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, has announced that it will cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce, to cut costs and prepare for a looming recession. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has apologized for his poor judgment and over-investment in the Metaverse, a kind of digital universe with virtual user characters. Many technologists considered the effects of the pandemic and proportionately increased user engagement with digital media to be permanent.

This is the largest number of layoffs in the history of the company.

A well-informed source cited by Reuters said that e-commerce giant Amazon plans to cut jobs in its home appliances division, which makes voice-activated devices such as Alexa and home security cameras, as well as in human resources and retail. When exactly the staff will be informed about the development of events has not yet been specified. According to Reuters, the sharp decline is due to the uncertain macroeconomic environment that Amazon and other companies are facing.

In addition, the latter predicts a slowdown in sales growth during the typically profitable Christmas and New Year holidays. In a phone call with reporters last month, CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company is now finding households are on much tighter budgets and have tighter spending margins, and the impact of high inflation and energy costs is also significant. Lastly, Amazon’s devices division is reported to have posted more than $5 billion in annual operating losses in recent years, as pointed out by the Wall Street Journal in a report last week.