Amazon had told its restaurants partners that it is committed to meet all its payments and other contractual obligations.
E-commerce major Amazon is planning to lay off around 1,000 staff in India as part of its global retrenchment drive, said sources close to the development. Globally, the company had announced that it would cut around 18,000 roles citing uncertain economic conditions.
“The global retrenchment drive will impact around 1,000 employees in India. Most of the employees impacted would be part of various pilot projects, in areas like kirana, MSMEs and other retail products and services. As many of them don’t turn out to be successful, they are closed down and employees working on them are either redeployed or they move on,” sources told FE.
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Amazon has around 100,000 employees in India and the move will impact 1% of staff in the country.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had informed employees about the company’s decision to eliminate 18,000 roles across the globe in a blog post on Thursday. As of December 31, 2021, Amazon employed approximately 1.6 million full-time and part-time staff.
“Between the reductions, we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organisations,” Jassy said.
When contacted, an Amazon India spokesperson declined to comment on the story.
Amazon India has also been scaling down various products and departments in India due to the ongoing economic downturn. In December 2022, Amazon shuttered down its food delivery service a little over two years after starting it. Amazon had launched the food delivery business in India in May 2020 in parts of Bengaluru and later expanded the service across the city, but it never heavily marketed or promoted the platform.
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Amazon had told its restaurants partners that it is committed to meet all its payments and other contractual obligations. Restaurants will have access to all Amazon tools and reports till January 31, 2023, and it will also provide support till March 31 for any compliance-related issues.
Apart from its food delivery business, Amazon in November, 2022 also shuttered its edtech platform in India, where it prepared students for competitive exams. The company had said that it will begin winding down the unit in a phased manner beginning August 2023 and will initiate a full refund of the fees that it received from students in the current batch.
Earlier, Amazon also said that it remains committed to the Indian market and will continue to invest across grocery, smartphones and consumer electronics, fashion and beauty, as well as B2B offerings such as Amazon Business.
Even after making investments of $6.5 billion in India in the last eight years, Amazon has not been able to become profitable in the country with negative Ebitda margins of 5-10%. Other digital platforms like Twitter and Meta have also recently fired thousands across the globe.
