A Massive Retailer Now Unexpectedly Lets Go of Hundreds

November 20, 2023

A massive retailer now unexpectedly lets go of hundreds after the e-commerce giant has eliminated tens of thousands of roles this year.

Amazon on Friday confirmed it will cut “several hundred” positions in its Alexa unit.

The company did not disclose the exact number of people impacted, their specific roles within Amazon’s devices business, or which Alexa initiatives were affected, reports RetailDive.

U.S. and Canadian-based Amazon employees affected by the Alexa-related job cuts were notified on Friday, per reports.

The company also plans to notify other employees, including some in India starting next week.

“As we continue to invent, we’re shifting some of our efforts to better align with our business priorities and what we know matters most to customers — which includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Retail Dive.

“These shifts are leading us to discontinue some initiatives, which is resulting in role eliminations,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

“We’re grateful to these employees for their contributions, and we’re supporting them in their next steps.”

Amazon said the number of people affected by the decision represents a relatively small percentage of the total number of people who work in the company’s Amazon Devices business.

“While this was a hard decision to make, we remain very optimistic about the future of Alexa.

As we move forward, Alexa remains an incredibly important part of our business, and we will continue to invest and innovate to deliver on our vision,” the spokesperson said.

There are more than half a billion Alexa devices in customers’ homes, according to the company.

“Our investments in generative AI are bringing our vision for an even more intuitive, intelligent, and useful Alexa closer than ever before.”

Also Read: A US Company Now Declares An Unexpected Bankruptcy

Other Economy News Today

A massive bank now eliminates hundreds of job positions accounting for roughly 10% of senior manager roles.

Citigroup Inc. is eliminating more than 300 senior manager roles as part of Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser’s efforts to simplify the Wall Street giant, reports Bloomberg.

The company started announcing the cuts — which affect staffers two levels below Fraser’s executive management team — on Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“They amount to roughly 10% of the workers at that level, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing personnel information.”

“Today we shared with our colleagues the next layer of changes across many of our businesses and functions as we continue to align Citi’s organizational structure with our new, simplified operating model,” the bank said in a statement.

“As we’ve acknowledged, the actions we’re taking to reorganize the firm involve some difficult, consequential decisions, but we believe they are the right steps to align our structure with our strategy and ensure we consistently deliver excellence to our clients.”

Citigroup last month announced plans to reduce its organization structure from 13 layers to eight and has axed 60 management committees, with more changes set to come that could reportedly see it cut up to 10% of its workforce.

The bank expects to complete its restructuring and subsequent layoffs by the end of March 2024.

Big banks with large trading and investment banking operations “have been struggling throughout 2023 to overcome a dealmaking slump, an uncertain economy, and the impact of higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve,” says Yahoo Finance.

Bonuses in the financial service industry are also expected to be flat or down for the year, according to a third quarter report from Johnson Associates.

Also Read: A US Bank is Now Denying Customers Access to Money

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