The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Retail Retail Trade, Except Of Motor Vehicles And Motorcycles Retail Sale Via Stalls And Markets Or Other 47.9 - Retail trade not in stores, stalls or markets
18,000 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
4 January 2023
Employment effect (start)
18 January 2023
Foreseen end date
Description
E-commerce multinational company, Amazon, has announced a global restructuring which will cut around 18000 jobs from it's workforce. The layoffs will mostly impact the company’s brick-and-mortar stores, including Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and its organisations which handle human resources and other functions. Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy has cited uncertain economic conditions, inflation-related cost pressures and rapid hiring over recent years as the leading reasons for why the company is undertaking the restructuring process.
Where the affected roles are located has not been specified, but Amazon has stated it would communicate with impacted employees 'or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies' from 18 January 2023.
Amazon has announced it will increase the global job cuts by 9,000, bringing the total number to 27,000. The company has stated that upon completing a second phase of its operating plan, it has determined that due to an uncertain economy and unsustainable recruitment during the pandemic, additional cost saving plans have to be implemented. Locations have not yet been released, however it is already known that web services, people experience and technology solutions (PXT), advertising and video live streaming service Twitch will be the most impacted areas of the company.
Eurofound (2023), Amazon, Internal restructuring in World, factsheet number 108152, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/108152.
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The retail banking sector is fertile ground for studying the impacts of digitalisation on work and employment. Financial services are increasingly provided online, without the intermediary of customer-facing institutions.
European labour markets have recovered strongly from COVID-19. By the end of 2021, little more than 18 months after the start of the pandemic, employment rates in the EU were almost at pre-crisis levels.
