As part of a larger company-wide cost-cutting initiative that has been in place since last year, Amazon announced on Friday that it had started to fire “several hundred” employees in its Alexa division.
An Amazon spokeswoman released a copy of the memo that Daniel Rausch, the vice president of Alexa and Fire TV at Amazon, addressed to employees telling them of the layoffs.
“We’re reorienting some of our activities to better match with our business priorities and what we know matters most to customers as we continue to invent,” Rausch stated in the message that GeekWire first reported. “This includes optimising our resources and efforts focused on generative AI.” “These changes are forcing us to halt several efforts, which means that several hundred jobs will be destroyed as a result.”
Which Alexa projects Amazon is discontinuing as a result of the change was not made clear by the company.
Employees in the United States and Canada who were impacted will hear from the company on Friday. Employees in India will get notice the next week, while Rausch stated that the timing of notifications in other areas will rely on local laws.
Since last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been reducing expenses as the company deals with a slower growth in its core retail business and the economic slump. With almost 27,000 jobs lost, the corporation started the biggest layoffs in its history and discontinued a number of its less successful projects. Alexa is part of Amazon’s devices and services division, which had layoffs in the past.
Source (CNBC)
