Amazon plans to lay off 10,000 people: report

Amazon is planning to lay off approximately 10,000 people from its workforce this week, following the steps of other major tech companies, according to a report by The New York Times.

The job cuts will be focused in the company’s technology and corporate departments, which include its retail and human resources divisions and its devices division, which manufactures the popular virtual voice assistant Alexa. 

The company also froze hiring in multiple departments, including its cloud computing division. The reported layoffs is expected to be the largest in the company’s history. 

The Alexa and Echo devices lost $5 billion in 2018, a source told the Times. 

The reported layoffs would affect at least 3 percent of the company’s corporate workforce and less than 1 percent of its global workforce, which is around 1.5 million employees. 

Amazon follows other major U.S. tech giants such as Meta and Twitter in announcing layoffs.

The Hill has reached out to Amazon for comment.