In the massive job cuts announced by Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company, the number of developers is known to be about 40%. Analysts say that while artificial intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly developing and replacing jobs, Amazon is also joining the ranks of tech companies that reorganize their manpower with AI.
Citing a report submitted to New York, California, New Jersey and Washington State, where Amazon is headquartered, CNBC, a U.S. economic expert, reported on the 21st that about 40% of the more than 4,700 jobs cut in the state were developers. Earlier, Amazon announced plans to lay off 14,000 people on the 28th of last month. CNBC said, “This large-scale manpower adjustment has affected Amazon’s wide range of business sectors, including cloud computing, advertising, retail, and grocery stores. The biggest job cut was engineers.” The restructuring is the largest job cut in Amazon’s 31-year history. Ironically, however, the company has recently made high profits in the data center sector. Amazon exceeded market expectations with $180.2 billion in sales and $17.4 billion in Amazon Web Service (AWS) operating profit in the third quarter of this year. The figures are up 13% and 20% year-on-year, respectively.
This is attributed to the replacement of manpower due to the introduction and automation of AI. According to Rayoff.fyi, a specialized statistical site that has recorded restructuring of the technology industry since COVID-19, a total of 113,000 jobs have been cut in 231 technology companies this year. Earlier, Meta conducted a workforce adjustment for 600 employees, and IBM also announced a workforce adjustment to focus on the software sector in the fourth quarter. IBM said in a statement on the 4th of this month, “We are implementing measures that will affect the single-digit percentage of the global workforce.” As of the end of last year, IBM had about 270,000 employees. A 1% reduction would cost 2,700 people their jobs.
However, Amazon explained that the job cuts are not due to AI. Amazon said in a statement that the cause of job cuts is not AI, adding that the bigger goal is to reduce inefficient organizational operations within the company and speed up decision-making. Amazon CEO Andy Jacey once mentioned that Amazon aims to transform its corporate culture into the world’s largest startup. He said he would scale back his bloated organization to make it a company that does more with less resources. Amazon announced in June that it would see fewer employees at Amazon over the next few years, while improving AI-driven efficiency.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
