Amazon employees are bracing for anticipated layoffs. They're coping with that sword of Damocles by sharing memes on the workplace chat app Slack, according to Business Insider.
What's happening?
In several respects, the rumored round of Amazon layoffs wasn't a surprise to the firm's staff.
In March, CEO Andy Jassy alluded to looming workforce cuts. In October, 30,000 positions were reportedly on the chopping block, but 14,000 jobs were ultimately eliminated.
On Jan. 13, Reuters reported that tens of thousands of Amazon layoffs were expected in the coming days, particularly in "Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video, and human resources."
Business Insider gained access to a massive internal Amazon Slack channel "with more than 26,000 employees." Nervous workers attempted to defuse the tension with memes and jokes about founder Jeff Bezos' famed "two pizza rule."
Bezos' pizza axiom held that teams (or meetings) should never be large enough to require more than two pizzas to feed everyone involved. Separately, Amazon workers have been known to joke about Bezos' reluctance to let the company's wealth trickle down.
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"One meme showed a single, thin sliver of pizza with the caption 'how we feed two pizza teams,'" Business Insider noted, adding that not all Amazon employees were in a joking mood.
"I don't know what will happen on 27 Jan and at this point I'm too afraid to ask," another quoted Slack message read.
Why are Amazon's layoffs concerning?
Amazon has become increasingly controversial over the past five years for a range of reasons.
Workplace conditions at Amazon warehouses have been a point of contention. The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) issued citations at facilities in three states "for not providing safe workplaces" in 2023.
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Several of the layoffs are expected to affect Amazon Web Services employees. Quite a few communities are concerned about the division's data centers. In Oregon, an Amazon data center has been tentatively linked to a cluster of rare cancers.
In March, Jassy attributed the coming staff cuts to the advancement of AI technology. But on Jan. 23, Reuters reported that he backtracked on a Q3 earnings call. Jassy admitted the staff slashing was "not really financially driven and it's not even really AI-driven," citing "culture."
Amazon's data centers are already disrupting life in the Pacific Northwest, and a string of layoffs is likely to inflict more chaos on locals employed by the "everything store."
What's being done about it?
As a retail and web services giant, Amazon's actions — small or large — can have a seismic effect on workers, consumers, and the economy.
When the company electrifies its fleet or cuts wasteful packaging, the impact can be vast.
Amazon employees had not yet begun reporting layoffs but suspected they'd begin on Jan. 27.
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