Amazon has been on an acquisition spree in the last few years, buying up companies like Ring and Whole Foods. But now it's time for some cuts at Amazon HQ. The company reportedly plans to lay off about 10,000 employees starting this week.

According to the New York Times, Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 employees in corporate and technology roles starting this week. Separately, The Wall Street Journal cited a source saying Amazon planned to lay off thousands.

The tech giant currently employs more than 566,000 people globally and operates as many as 75 retail websites worldwide. So, while we expect Amazon to continue growing through acquisitions of new businesses in the coming months and years, this round of job cuts is a sign that they're also looking inward.

The report stated that the cuts would be Amazon's largest ever and would mostly impact its retail division, devices organization, and human resources.

Despite the reported layoffs, Amazon's global workforce and corporate employees would be affected by less than 1%.

This report followed the trend of employees getting laid off at other firms. Last week Meta announced that it is cutting more than 13% of its workforce, more than 11,000 employees. Likewise, after Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition, Twitter announced that it's laying off more than half of its staff.

As of Dec. 31, 2021, Amazon had 1.6 million full- and part-time employees, a 102% increase from the end of 2019. The New York Times said the number of layoffs is "fluid" and could change.

The holiday shopping season is critical for Amazon, and usually, the company has increased its headcount to meet demand. But Andy Jassy, who took over as CEO in July 2021, has been in cost-cutting mode to preserve cash as the company confronts slowing sales and a gloomy global economy.

It looks like Amazon is not making it any secret of how seriously it takes the trouble in retail. They announced plans to freeze hiring for corporate roles in their retail business and made headlines shutting down and cutting services for their customers. Amazon also stopped their work-from-home customer support, warehouses, and launch of robots.

Earlier this month, Amazon disappointed investors when the comapny revealed the third quarter's disappointing earnings. In the month of October, shares plunged over 13%. Not only did this become the first time that Amazon's market cap had fallen below $1 trillion since April of 2020.

It was also the second time this year that Amazon's results were responsible for a significant dip in the market. After the report was published, the stocks plummeted and eliminated the gains made by the share price.

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