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Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

bbc.com

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Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#201

Post by nsxwolf »

pjc50 wrote: post #189
chadash wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"job losses" is BBC editorializing. They do not use that term in their letter: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-workfor...

I think we may be hitting an issue in translation between English and American; in British English "fired" implies "for cause", while a "blameless" process of headcount reduction is known as "redundancy". "Job losses" is a perfectly reasonable neutral phrase here. Indeed, under UK law and job contracts you generally cannot just chuck someone out of their job without either notice or cause or, for large companies, a s…

I think American English is the same colloquially. “I got fired” means I didn’t perform or did something wrong. “I got laid off” is our “I was made redundant”.

“Fired” is also a technical term for both cases, in academic/economist speak.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#202

Post by blenderob »

JCM9 wrote: post #185

To be clear, it’s worse. Read the press release carefully: 1. 14k was the net change in “corporate headcount” which is PR puffery speak saying they’re firing a lot more but when you net out folks let go slotting into open roles elsewhere the net change today would be a 14k reduction 2. It also says that “looking ahead” “we expect to… find additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficie…

> there were huge misses on areas like AI

Honest question. What could they have possibly gained from AI? What did they miss out on by not getting into AI?

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#203

Post by ericmay »

Hikikomori wrote: post #194
ericmay wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US kind of does in that at least in spirit if the government violates the constitution we have this 2nd Amendment and plenty of moral precedent from the founders. It’s in the Declaration of Independence too which, in my view, is just the first page of the Constitution. The 0th Amendment if you will. Related to your second point about autocracy - I mean the good thing is you can, today, go start a company with the…

Won't work if the government is willing to use the army against you, like the current one.

Nope, see various rebellions throughout history plus insurgencies and such.

It won’t work not because it wouldn’t work - you’re also assuming 100% military compliance and, as a veteran who served in active duty I can tell you not everyone agrees or disagrees with the current administration and people really do care about the Constitution, but it wouldn’t work because when you sit down and really think about it, the status quo for 90% of people is pretty good and they’re not going to take up arms over the vast majority of things a government does.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#204

Post by fooqux »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #86
marcusb wrote: post #12

Once a company moves on to recurring, large-scale layoffs justified by vague corporate Mumbo-Jumbo, I think it is safe to assume it is a "day 2" company.

Or they know something that the current Administration does not (or is withholding)? Maybe it's time to buckle up for a coming economic storm.

Oh no, they might only make $15 billion instead of $18 billion next quarter?

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#205

Post by itopaloglu83 »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #155
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know that this is just the beginning to get us desensitized. The leaked plan is to fire up to 600,000 people. So roughly up to 40% of their workforce.

Hmmm, if you’re referring to this article[1], please make sure you’re accurately representing it. Amazon is not firing up to 600,000 people, they plan to automate jobs to avoid hiring 600,000 people projected out to 2033. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/technology/inside-amazons...

It also forecast a certain business growth that we see not happening. Also, no sane PM would document to fire 600,000 people, it’s always “avoid hiring, wink wink”.

Please combine the forecasted automation with the real compaction of the business. What happens when you continue to automate processes, but business doesn’t outpace the automation?

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#206

Post by conception »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #95
cheschire wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not aware of this term before. For others: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jeff-bezos-day-1-versus-2-com...

Non-LinkedIn version: https://ourdinnertable.wordpress.com/2025/05/06/jeff-bezos-d... > “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by death. And that’s why it’s always Day 1.” Sharks don't look back, cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep

I hope the shark thing isn’t said in earnest ever by anyone. It is the height of parody of a hustle culture bro. On second thought would you want $1 million now or $5000 a day and the guy says neither because that’s not how you build wealth or something. It’s probably number one.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#207

Post by rco8786 »

andsoitis wrote: post #177
phoe-krk wrote: post #4

These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.

> These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". While both terms mean someone no longer has a job, they differ in cause and implication. Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations. Job loss is a broader term, simply means the person no longer has a job, for any reason, but typically layoffs, downsizing, restructuring, plant closure, or being f…

"job loss" is purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs.

It's the same as language like "officer involved shooting" to avoid saying "an officer shot a person" or calling a "murder" a "loss of life".

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#208

Post by pjc50 »

kristov wrote: post #93
martin-t wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild that you can legally work for a company, spend your limited life's time to build a part of it while not owning even a tiny bit of it (getting paid for unit of time - a finite resource) and then just get fired once you are not longer useful and that's the end of your income from the thing you built for you. All the while people who own it don't have to perform any kind of work and keep getting paid in perpet…

I agree with your sentiment, but the reason for the imbalance is risk. As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company, you get a regular paycheck. But if you are an investor you take a risk that the money you invest can one day just vanish with zero return. With Amazon obviously the risk of that is low. But for many new companies the risk is very high. Therefore the payoffs are also high, to attract…

> As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company, you get a regular paycheck. But if you are an investor you take a risk that the money you invest can one day just vanish with zero return.

I would like people who cannot distinguish between an income stream and a capital value to learn what an "annuity" is.

Employees have very significant financial risk tied to the company because it's their main source of income. In America, there may even be significant health risks because health insurance is tied to the employer for baffling tax reasons.

Not to mention that in many startups, the employees are literally investors: they hold stock and options!

> So you get investors spreading their risk across many ventures

The employee version of this is called "overemployment", but it's quite risky.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#209

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #53
phoe-krk wrote: post #4

These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.

The conspiracist view would be that the media-industrial complex would want to prevent the stock price of a given company from dipping, as well as help them skirt around legal issues that may arise for the company in question if everyone reports the "layoff" as such, which is not always done according to practices (there are sometimes reports in the media about such, not specifically about Amazon though).

Mass layoffs tend to make stock prices go higher, not lower... so nothing to worry about there. If the news stories were even more brutal, accusing Amazon of axing tens of thousands and then laughing when those people begged and pleaded that they wouldn't be able to afford baby formula, I think I suspect that this would be even better at closing time than some less offensive journalism.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#210

Post by kristov »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #126
kristov wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but the reason for the imbalance is risk. As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company, you get a regular paycheck. But if you are an investor you take a risk that the money you invest can one day just vanish with zero return. With Amazon obviously the risk of that is low. But for many new companies the risk is very high. Therefore the payoffs are also high, to attract…

>As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company Is your livelihood, housing, ability to put food on the table for your family etc. not a risk by your understanding? Or are you only willing to accept certain types of financial risk as "risk"? Here's an illustrative question: John Q. Billionaire owns shares in a passive index fund such that he practically has the same exposure to Amazon's stock price…

If your a billionaire and you invest in index funds, the risk of becoming homeless is really low, sure. The system works in such a way that the more money you have the easier it is to make more money. So if your stuck at the bottom, your really stuck.

And I believe there is a huge shift of wealth going on, to a very small number of insanely rich people. And that is a very big problem.

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