The following message was shared with Amazon employees on November 2, 2022.
Given the uncertain economy and how many people we’ve hired over the last few years, Andy and the S-Team decided this week to take a break from hiring new people at our company. We have already done this in some of our stores over the past few weeks and have added our other stores to this approach. We expect this pause to remain in place for the next few months and will continue to monitor what we see in the economy and business to adjust as we deem appropriate. In general, depending on the business unit or division, we are hiring to replace employees transitioning to new roles, and there are a few targeted roles where we will continue to gradually hire.
We are facing an unusual macroeconomic environment and want to align our attitudes and investments by reflecting on this economy. This is not the first time in our history that we have faced uncertain and challenging economies. While we’ve had several years in which we’ve significantly increased our headcount, there have also been several years in which we’ve tightened our belts and reduced the number of people we hired. With fewer people to hire currently, this should give each team the opportunity to further prioritize and be more productive on what’s most important to customers and the business.
We still intend to hire a significant number of people in 2023 and continue to be excited about our significant investments in our larger businesses, as well as newer initiatives such as Prime Video, Alexa, Grocery, Kuiper, Zoox and Healthcare.
If you have any questions about how this hiring hiatus will affect your team for the next few months, please speak to your manager in the coming days.
beth