Amazon workers in major Canadian cities impacted by mass layoffs

Amazon Vancouver office (Amazon Canada)

After media reports that Amazon planned to lay off about 10,000 employees surfaced, we are now learning that staff in Vancouver and Toronto appear to be affected.

Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Amazon planned to lay off about 10,000 employees in corporate and tech jobs starting this week.

Sources told The Times that job cuts would affect those who work on Amazon devices including voice-assistant Alexa, as well as its retail division and human resources.

This would be the largest number of job cuts in the company’s history, representing roughly 3% of its corporate staff and less than 1% of more than 1.5 million employees around the globe.

On Wednesday, Meliksah Şimsek posted on LinkedIn that he had been one of the employees cut from the company. According to his profile, he was a permanent full-time software engineer.

“Unfortunately, I was impacted by the Amazon layoff today. I was part of Alexa AI Foundations team,” his post reads.

“I had the chance of truly excelling in the overall software development and involving in a wide range of technical projects during the course of my career,” he said.

LinkedIn screenshot

Tushar Chand Kapoor, another employee who appears to have worked in the Toronto office, also shared his experience online.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Kapoor was a software developer working for about nine months at Amazon.

“Unfortunately, I’m part of Amazon’s layoffs, the entire Amazon Devices Organization is impacted by the #amazonlayoffs and I am given 60 days to find another internal or external position,” a recent LinkedIn post from Kapoor reads.

“It has been an Amazing journey at Amazon. I’ve been enjoying the time delivering customer-focused features in the Amazon Echo, Fire TV and other Smart Amazon Devices.”

LinkedIn screenshot

Amazon Canada would not confirm to Daily Hive how many employees from Canadian operations were impacted.

According to Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for the company, “As part of our annual operating planning review process, we always look at each of our businesses and what we believe we should change. As we’ve gone through this, given the current macro-economic environment (as well as several years of rapid hiring), some teams are making adjustments, which in some cases means certain roles are no longer necessary.

“We don’t take these decisions lightly, and we are working to support any employees who may be affected.”

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News of these job cuts comes during a critical time for the company as the holiday shopping season begins.

The company has already implemented cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze for corporate positions in its retail division; shutting down its telehealth service; and closing, cancelling, or delaying new warehouse locations.

In a blog post shared earlier this week, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and service, Dave Limp said, “after a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programs.”

“One of the consequences of these decisions is that some roles will no longer be required. It pains me to have to deliver this news as we know we will lose talented Amazonians from the Devices & Services org as a result. I am incredibly proud of the team we have built and to see even one valued team member leave is never an outcome any of us want.”

He said employees were notified on Tuesday.

“In cases where employees cannot find a new role within the company, we will support the transition with a package that includes a separation payment, transitional benefits, and external job placement support,” he added.

With files from Claire Fenton and Isabelle Docto