E-commerce firm Amazon said that it was hiring 4,000 people in India, and that a few people have been affected in the bid to reorganize teams, following reports that it is laying off 60 people.
The company said that the “reports stating 60 people (being fired) is factually incorrect and overstated,” according to the Financial Express. “As a global organization, we have recognized the need to more organize our teams to keep us agile and help us use our resources optimally. This has impacted a small number of roles within the company,” an Amazon India spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report.
The company is giving support to the affected employees such as giving them relevant internal posting and outplacement services.
“We would like to add that we continue to hire across multiple roles in India, with little over 4,000 jobs being open for hire across various teams in India,” the spokesperson added.
The 60 people laid off were from the recruitment team, according to the Economic Times. The company also put 25 per cent employees on performance improvement plans, sources told ET.
“This is part of a global reorganization as Amazon and (CEO Jeff) Bezos look to strategically deploy resources into high-growth and priority areas to further drive the consumer flywheel over the coming years,” Daniel Ives, the chief strategy officer at New York-based market research firm GBH Insights, was quoted as saying by ET.
In February 2018, the Seattle Times reported that Amazon was cutting jobs mostly from the consumer retail division as many of the departments are over budget and some teams are overstaffed. The layoffs were going to be in Seattle and globally.
“As part of our annual planning process, we are making head count adjustments across the company — small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others,” a spokesman had told the Seattle Times.
Amazon was also reported to be looking to cut jobs from its publishing arm Createspace and footwear seller Zappos.
However, the firm hired 130,000 people in 2017, according to its latest quarterly earnings report. In December 2017, Amazon had 566,000 employees, an increase of 66 per cent from 2016.