The announcement comes amid a string of job-cutting plans by major employers with large workforces in Britain.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been dealt another jobs blow after Amazon began cutting almost 1,000 corporate roles, with workers in Britain among those affected. The online retail giant has launched its latest round of redundancies across the UK, US and India as it continues to reshape its workforce. Most of the positions affected are understood to be within Amazon’s Stores division, which oversees its core ecommerce operations.
Jobs across areas, including customer service and selling partner services, are reportedly among those being lost. Amazon confirmed the cuts but described them as affecting a “small number” of roles, saying it had made changes to better align its store business with its priorities.
The announcement comes amid a string of job-cutting plans by major employers with large workforces in Britain. Royal Mail announced this week that up to 2,500 head office and support roles could disappear by the end of 2027 as part of an organisational overhaul. HSBC is also consulting over cuts in its UK wealth management business, with reports suggesting around half of management and specialist roles and up to 70% of financial adviser positions could go.
Last month, Jaguar Land Rover announced plans that could affect up to 4,000 jobs as it looks to save £1.7billion over two years. Legal & General has separately announced plans to reduce its workforce by around 1,000 roles by the middle of 2027.
Mr Burnham has put creating jobs at the heart of his economic plans (Image: Getty)
Amazon confirmed the cuts but described them as affecting a ‘small number’ of roles (Image: Getty)
The announcements come at a difficult time for Mr Burnham, who has put creating jobs and encouraging businesses to invest at the heart of his economic plans. Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, he outlined plans for a new partnership with businesses aimed at driving investment, creating jobs and growing the economy. But the latest official figures show the challenge facing the Government.
An early estimate suggested the number of payrolled employees fell by 145,000 in the year to August. Amazon’s latest cuts also follow a much larger reduction in its workforce, with around 30,000 jobs eliminated between last year and January.
Founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos has linked the reductions to the company’s huge expansion during the Covid pandemic, when people stayed at home and increasingly relied on online shopping.
Speaking in a Fox News interview, Mr Bezos said: “People were staying home and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us, by the way. The whole team worked extremely hard and did so much, but we really grew our headcount.”
Amazon has also increasingly focused on artificial intelligence and organisational efficiency as it restructures its operations.
However, the company continues to invest elsewhere in Britain. In September, it increased wages for tens of thousands of frontline UK workers, taking minimum full-time salaries above £31,000 a year.