Leading e-commerce giant Amazon has once again launched a job-reduction process. This time it has announced that it has laid off more than a thousand employees worldwide. These layoffs have affected retail teams in several countries, including India, the US and the UK. It seems that these latest cuts are part of a broader plan to lay off a total of 30,000 employees in the coming days.

Reuters and Business Insider reports said that employees from the 'Stores' business unit, which oversees the e-commerce website, have been laid off. "We have made some adjustments to the Stores business to better meet our priorities," an Amazon spokesperson explained to Reuters. However, the company did not disclose the exact number of people laid off. 

On the other hand, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that the current layoffs were due to hiring more employees than necessary during the Corona pandemic. "At that time, people were confined to their homes and they ordered more. It was a very stressful time for us," he said in an interview with 'Fox News'.

It is noteworthy that these layoffs have taken place at the same time as the 'Amazon Great Indian Festival' sale in India and the 'Prime Big Deal Days' sale worldwide have started. Employees were informed of their dismissal through an email on Tuesday. With this, it is reported that the affected employees discussed the severance package, notice period and other options in the company's internal Slack channel.

Huge investments in AI.. While the new trend in the tech industry
is laying off employees on the one hand, Amazon is preparing to invest heavily in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector on the other hand. It is planning to spend a total of $ 220 billion on data centers, chips and other infrastructure for AI. In addition, there are also reports that some previously laid-off employees are being contacted again for vacancies in AWS and AI departments.

This trend of job cuts and investments in AI is not limited to Amazon. Other tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle have also been laying off thousands of employees in recent times while focusing heavily on AI projects. This development reflects the changing priorities in the tech industry.