Amazon Freezes New Hires in Corporate Workforce

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMAZON) shares continued their losing run on Thursday, closing down 3%, meaning the tech giant’s stock is down over 46% in 2022.

Yesterday’s move came following the company’s announcement that it has paused incremental new hires in its corporate workforce.

Amazon said it made the decision due to the economy being in an “uncertain” place and in light of how many people it has hired in the last few years. In addition, it revealed that it had already decided to pause corporate hires in a few of its businesses in recent weeks and has now taken the same approach with its other businesses.

Also Read: What is Amazon’s CSR Policy?

Around a month ago, Bloomberg reported that Amazon had frozen corporate hiring in its retail business, while two days ago, the publication said the company had frozen hiring levels in its advertising business.

Amazon said it will keep the hiring freeze in place for at least the next few months as it assesses the economy and adjusts its business, although it will replace some employees who leave the company, depending on the are of the business, while some targeted areas will continue to hire people incrementally.

“We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, said in a memo to employees on Thursday.

“This is not the first time that we’ve faced uncertain and challenging economies in our past. While we have had several years where we’ve expanded our headcount broadly, there have also been several years where we’ve tightened our belt and were more streamlined in how many people we added,” she added.

The company stated it still intends to hire a meaningful number of people in 2023.