AMAZON IS TO cut a further 9,000 jobs from its global workforce in the coming weeks, CEO Andy Jassy told staff members in a memo today.

It comes two months after the tech firm announced that it would lay off 18,000 workers worldwide, citing “the uncertain economy” and the fact that the online retail giant had “hired rapidly” during the pandemic.

It is not yet known how the latest round of layoffs will affect staff employed in Ireland.

In the memo to staff, Jassy said: “As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks”.

He said that most of the cuts would be in web services, people experience and technology solutions (PXT), advertising and video live streaming service Twitch.

“This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” Jassy said.

He said the company had added a “significant amount of headcount” over the last few years, but that now “given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount”.

He also said the reason the latest layoffs were not included in January’s announcement is because ”not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall”.

Jassy added that the impacted teams are “not yet finished making final decisions on precisely which roles will be impacted”.

“Once those decisions have been made (our goal is to have this complete by mid to late April), we will communicate with the impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies).”

It is the latest tech company to announce a series of job cuts in recent months. 

Last week, Facebook’s parent company Meta announced it would cut its global workforce by around 10,000, just months after laying off 11,000 employees.

Earlier this month, Microsoft said it would cut a further 60 jobs from its Irish workforce a month after staff were informed that 120 employees would be laid off. 

Google’s parent company Alphabet, Salesforce, Spotify and Dell have also recently announced layoffs, with each citing the uncertain economy.