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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

#221

Post by itsoktocry »

sbarre wrote: post #40
redwood wrote: post #25

This is a reflection of 1) compensation has come down since the ZIRP era at least in some roles and 2) it's a hirer's market. This means companies see an opportunity to bring compensation down. I wish employees would instead have an opportunity to sign up for lower salary. For whatever reason you just don't see that happening anywhere

I've taken pay cuts twice in my career, but both times it was at unfunded startups and it was more of a "we'll get you back for this later" (one did, one did not). I worry that normalizing the idea that a company can make you an offer (that you can't refuse) of lower pay, with the alternative being that you get fired, would set some really bad precedents. Companies would start to min/max this process and would use it…

>Companies would start to min/max this process and would use it as a way to meet targets (perhaps unrealistic ones) at the expense of take-home pay for employees, even in situations where they don't actually need to make cuts.

And the reverse? We literally just went through a phase where tech companies over hired like crazy, at ridiculous salaries. We had people remote working 3 or more jobs at a time. And yet, people still act like companies have all the power?

This stuff ebbs and flows. The reality is the value of your labour fluctuates, despite the inconvenience of that to you.

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

#222

Post by HacklesRaised »

schnable wrote: post #190
heresie-dabord wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the CNN report [1]: --- Al won’t just effect change at Amazon, Jassy said. AI "will change how we all work and live," including "billions" of AI agents “across every company and in every imaginable field." However, much of this remains speculative. "Many of these agents have yet to be built, but make no mistake, they’re coming, and coming fast," Jassy said. --- [1] _ https://lite.cnn.com/2025/10/28/business/amaz…

Continually AI is used to justify layoffs that seem like simple corrections to overhiring.

I always wonder if the people responsible for the over-hiring are on the block? My personal experience suggests not.

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

#223

Post by qsi »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #211
andsoitis wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why is downsizing and an employee’s role no longer being cost effective for the business not considered “cause” for firing?

Cause in this context specifically refers to the employee having done something wrong or illegal and means the employee is guilty of misconduct.

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

#224

Post by happimess »

jwmerrill wrote: post #198
latexr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking the same, this is quite the weasel wording. Not only the “losses” but the passive voice. As if Amazon is a person who walked to work one day and realise it has a hole in its pocket from which thousands of jobs fell off. “Oh well, these things happen, not my fault and nothing I can do about it”, Amazon says as it shrugs its shoulders and whistles down the factory floor with a skip in its step.

“Passive voice” is a grammatical term. “Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses,” is not an example of the passive voice. “14,000 workers were fired by Amazon,” is an example of the passive voice. There is not a 1:1 relationship between being vague about agency and using the passive voice.

I've heard it described as the "exculpative voice".

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

#225

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#226

Post by z3dd »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #100
reactordev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse, we’ve been in one but have been pretending we aren’t. Stock goes up.

Waiting for the music to stop… (Actually I'm not, but the rest of the market seems to be. In this version of musical chairs, you can sit down any time you like—you just miss out on potential gains before the music stops.)

That's because music doesn't stop often and historically not sitting down was almost always a better strategy.

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

#227

Post by pjc50 »

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.

I wonder if the company that makes part of its money from consumer goods shipped from China knows something about the impact of tariffs on consumer spending. They've probably already assessed the impact on their models of Black Friday and Christmas purchases and decided it looks bad.

(most of their money is from AWS, though. I wonder if AI is making that less stock-relevant.)

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

#228

Post by jvanderbot »

blenderob wrote: post #202
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?

Have you noticed how bad their devices dept was gutted? I can easily imagine a proper AI system backing alexa, rolled out to all existing customers, which would potentially boost the viability of that whole product line.

right now I have no idea what Alexa is for anymore. It pings me when a package arrives but so does my phone. I can't order from it, because it makes me open the app. I can manage a shopping list I guess? I ask it the temp outside from time to time b/c I don't want to go look at the thermometer outside my window?

A proper device would discuss with me product options and Q&A, or something. Even piping Grok/GPT5 through to answer questions would be light years ahead of the current crap answers I get when I ask questions. And why doesn't it do a good job of identifying songs that are playing? That's trivial software, and it could recommend some songs like this (which is something I use GPT for).

I don't know I'm just a trad software engineer, but it sure seems like it's low risk / high improvement to at least have a modern LLM feature in that product.

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

#229

Post by JCM9 »

blenderob wrote: post #202
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?

AWS is probably in last place among computing clouds on AI and the AI managed services from AWS are pretty second-rate.

Amazon had Alexa (Echos) everywhere and that was teed up to knock it out of the park putting a real AI assistant in every home. Then the devices team totally blew it and did almost nothing to take advantage of that huge lead. Folks are now basically just throwing these things in the trash and the devices unit is a huge pit of cash on fire.

The list goes on…

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

#230

Post by qsi »

jwmerrill wrote: post #198
latexr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking the same, this is quite the weasel wording. Not only the “losses” but the passive voice. As if Amazon is a person who walked to work one day and realise it has a hole in its pocket from which thousands of jobs fell off. “Oh well, these things happen, not my fault and nothing I can do about it”, Amazon says as it shrugs its shoulders and whistles down the factory floor with a skip in its step.

“Passive voice” is a grammatical term. “Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses,” is not an example of the passive voice. “14,000 workers were fired by Amazon,” is an example of the passive voice. There is not a 1:1 relationship between being vague about agency and using the passive voice.

Correct. There's nothing vague about "the burglar was shot by me."

It's passive but crystal clear.

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