Tech giant Amazon has started laying off employees, according to LinkedIn posts from workers who say they are being impacted by the job cuts.
Earlier this week it was reported that the company plans to cut 10,000 jobs, roughly 3% of its office staff.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.
It comes as thousands of jobs are being shed across the tech industry as companies face slumps in sales amid growing concerns of an economic slowdown.
The contributions seen by the BBC come from employees at Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant business and Luna’s cloud gaming platform division.
One employee, who says she worked as a software development engineer in the US, posted that she was looking for a new job: “Due to my visa, I have limited time to look for new work opportunities.”
Another Amazon employee who said he was affected by the layoffs said: “Obviously I’m sad but still optimistic about the future because I know this is a good change for me and others on my team. “
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The company had already imposed a hiring freeze and halted some of its warehouse expansions, warning it had hired too many workers during the pandemic.
It had also taken steps to shut down some parts of its business and cancel projects such as a personal delivery robot.
Last month, Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos warned that the US economy was sending a signal to “close the hatches.”
Amazon’s stock price has fallen more than 40% this year as the company struggles with a slowdown in online sales.
Other big tech companies have already announced major layoffs to cut costs.
Last week, Meta – which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – announced it would be shedding 13% of its workforce.
The first mass layoffs in the company’s history will result in 11,000 employees losing their jobs.
Shortly after Elon Musk took over Twitter, it was confirmed that he would cut the social media platform’s headcount by around 50%.
Tech giant Microsoft, payment processing platform Stripe and cloud-based enterprise software company Salesforce have also announced layoffs in recent weeks.
A Seattle tech industry insider who wished to remain anonymous told the BBC the job market has changed significantly in recent weeks.
“The last two years have been great for job opportunities due to remote work, which means you don’t have to limit a job search to your local area. This has shown that the battle for talent has been very competitive and wages have risen very high.”
“What we’re seeing now is a contraction in budgets and staffing.”
He said some tech companies, including Amazon, are likely to be hit particularly hard.
“Amazon is very, very bloated. So there’s a lot of people there, but they don’t offer much value, so they’re first on the chopping block.”
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