AWS announces more job cuts

Cuts will mostly affect training, certification and sales personnel

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AWS announces more job cuts

Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest cloud company, is cutting hundreds of jobs inside its sales, marketing and global services organisation while also laying off hundreds of employees from Amazon’s physical stores technology team.

The cuts will mostly affect training, certification and sales personnel, AWS told CRN. The $97 billion company said the job cuts were needed to "streamline" some business units while shifting efforts toward more "key strategic areas."

"Once all processes related to this action are complete, we expect these role eliminations to impact several hundred roles in specific areas of the sales, marketing and global services organisation, and a few hundred roles in the physical stores technology team," an AWS spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said AWS has "identified a few targeted areas of the organisation we need to streamline in order to continue focusing our efforts on the key strategic areas that we believe will deliver maximum impact."

AWS is the world's number one cloud market-share leader with 32% global share of the cloud market. Last year Amazon made more than 18,000 job cuts.

AWS shifts towards ‘self-serve' training

AWS is shifting toward more digital training and training programmes run by external partners, with a new focus on self-service training.

"Within our training and certification organisation, we have evolved our strategy to prioritise investing in self-serve digital training and delivering instructor-led training through AWS Training Partners," the spokesperson said.

These new AWS employee layoffs will mostly impact employees inside AWS' training and certification and sales operations teams.

AWS said in other areas of its business, the company found "duplications in job families such as programme management and sales operations," which spurred some job cuts as well.

AWS is also laying off hundreds of employees from its physical stores technology teams.

"In physical stores technology, this decision is the result of a broader strategic shift in the use of some applications in Amazon's own [stores] as well as in third-party stores," said the AWS spokesperson.

These job cuts will affect AWS developer teams who create technology for Amazon's physical retail stores.

This news comes as Amazon said it is moving away from its "Just Walk Out" technology in its Amazon Fresh grocery stores.

AWS laying off employees but ‘hiring for priorities'

AWS stressed that although it is laying off hundreds of employees, the company is looking to hire thousands of new employees in priority areas.

"While we are eliminating roles in parts of these teams, we're hiring for priorities in other areas," the AWS spokesperson told CRN. "We are continuing to hire and grow, especially in core areas of our business. Right now, for example, there are thousands of jobs posted across AWS."

The company said it is committed to supporting affected employees by looking for new roles in and outside Amazon. AWS said the job cut decision was "difficult but necessary as we continue to invest, hire and optimise resources to deliver innovation for our customers."

This article first appeared on CRN