Cloud News
Amazon’s AWS Layoffs: 5 Things To Know About ‘Devastating’ Cuts
Mark Haranas
From the number of potential AWS employees being laid off to AWS being the major profit driver for Amazon, CRN breaks down five things to know from Amazon’s 9,000 layoff announcement today.
Amazon Web Services, the $85 billion worldwide leader in cloud computing, is laying off a sizeable number of employees which could have a “devastating” impact on AWS, according to AWS partners.
“This could be the biggest layoff round ever at AWS. That’s somewhat scary for us as a partner, and could be devastating for AWS from an innovation or even a competitive perspective,” said one CEO from a national solution provider that did not want to be named, whose primary vendor partner is AWS. “We like everyone else want to know more information as soon as possible, but this is new news even for our channel account manager who we just reached out too.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who was previously CEO of AWS until 2021, disclosed today that the company will be cutting a total of 9,000 employees primarily from its AWS, PXT, advertising and Twitch organizations.
“This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” said Jassy.
[Related: AWS Vs. Azure Vs. GCP: Flexera 2023 Customer Cloud Results]
Amazon Layoffs
In January, Amazon unveiled it would lay off 18,000 employees. CRN learned at the time that AWS would not be greatly affected by the round of layoffs. However, Amazon’s newest layoff round will undoubtedly affect AWS employees.
Within the first few months of 2023, Amazon will have terminated a whopping 27,000 employees with at least hundreds, if not potentially thousands, coming via AWS.
Monday’s announcement of 9,000 layoffs at Amazon is hardly the first major layoff round in the tech industry this year. For example just last week, social media giant Meta unveiled it will be laying off another 10,000 employees. This is on top of the 11,000 employees Meta already terminated in late 2022.
One partner told CRN he sees these layoffs as a potential opportunity for AWS to lean more into AWS partners.
“This is an opportunity for AWS to have even greater ‘partner obsession’ and leverage the channel as the growth engine going forward,” said one executive from a solution provider and AWS partner based in the Northeast.
CRN breaks down five things AWS employees, partners and customers need to know about Amazon’s newest layoff round that will hit AWS.
