Amazon Devices: 10,000 layoffs at tech giant

There is a huge wave of redundancies in the Amazon Devices division of the tech giant. The division responsible for the Alexa voice assistant, which has fallen into crisis, is said to be particularly affected.

Amazon Devices with about 10,000 layoffs

Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa is in a huge crisis. For days, reports have persisted that the former baby of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos could soon end up on the sidelines.

The new Amazon CEO Andy Jassy could significantly reduce Alexa and the production of Echo devices for reasons of cost efficiency. The first effects of this are now apparently already being felt by the Amazon Devices division responsible for Alexa, as reported at least by the New York Times. Amazon spokesman Brad Glasser apparently declined to comment to the U.S. newspaper.

According to the report, citing people with internal knowledge, about 10,000 jobs are to be cut and about three percent of the workforce will be laid off. The mass dismissal is apparently to be made public this week. The retail and human resources departments are to be affected in particular.

The company is thus reacting to the falling share prices and sales figures within the financial year and is following the example of Facebook parent company Meta, which for its part also laid off over 11,000 employees last week.

How it continues with Alexa and the Echo devices, is currently still in the stars. At the end of September, Amazon introduced the new Echo Dot (Gen 5) and a new model with a clock.