Amazon pauses corporate hiring

But will continue to hire 'incrementally' in targeted areas.

E-commerce giant Amazon is pausing recruitment for positions in its corporate workforce, as the firm deals with the struggling global economy and falling tech stock value.

Beth Galetti, senior vice-president of People Experience and Technology, wrote in a blog post that the company anticipates maintaining the pause for the next few months, and will continue to monitor what "we're seeing in the economy and the business to adjust as we think makes sense".

Amazon had already suspended hiring in certain divisions in recent weeks, but says it will "hire backfills to replace employees who move on to new opportunities" depending on the area or business.

Additionally, Amazon "will continue to hire people incrementally" in some targeted areas.

"This is not the first time that we've faced uncertain and challenging economies in our past," Galetti noted.

"While we have had several years where we've expanded our headcount broadly, there have also been several years where we've tightened our belt and were more streamlined in how many people we added."

Galetti noted that the move to freeze hiring would force Amazon's current teams to focus on the bottom line. She also underlined that teams would have to prioritise productivity.

Despite the challenging labour market, Amazon plans to recruit a "meaningful number of people" next year.

Galetti's message was initially sent as an email to staff members. She advised employees to communicate with their manager in the next days if they have any queries regarding the temporary hiring freeze.

Amazon hired aggressively at the height of the pandemic, to keep up with surging e-commerce demand. However, the company has faced challenges this year as a result of both a return to in-person shopping and rising costs.

The business reported a $2 billion loss in Q2 and postponed the opening of certain facilities.

Andy Jassy, who became Amazon CEO last year, has been searching for meaningful ways to cut spending across the business.

Amazon is not the first company to announce a hiring freeze in recent months.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, previously announced plans for cost-cutting measures and hiring freeze at the company back in September.

Last month, Oracle laid off more than 200 of its workers in California, and Microsoft also quietly terminated hundreds of employees across various divisions in a fresh round of layoffs last month.

Apple has said that it will slow its hiring process in 2023.