Amazon announces hiring freeze: Read senior vice president’s memo to employees – Times of India

Amazon is pausing hiring for new positions in its corporate workforce for the next few months in response to the “uncertain” economy. The company has announced a corporate hiring freeze. The e-commerce giant’s senior vice president of People Experience and Technology, Beth Galetti, confirmed the move in an employee memo that has also been published on Amazon’s own blog. In the letter, Galetti says that the company had already begun pausing or slowing hiring in various corporate departments in “recent weeks.” She also lists out potential exceptions to this hiring freeze. These include replacements. As a glimmer of hope for 2023, she adds that the company plans to add “a meaningful number of people” next year. Here’s the memo as it appeared on Amazon’s website.
Team
With the economy in an uncertain place and in light of how many people we have hired in the last few years, Andy and S-team decided this week to pause on new incremental hires in our corporate workforce. We had already done so in a few of our businesses in recent weeks and have added our other businesses to this approach. We anticipate keeping this pause in place 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. In general, depending on the business or area of the company, we will hire backfills to replace employees who move on to new opportunities, and there are some targeted places where we will continue to hire people incrementally.

We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy. This is not the first time that we’ve faced uncertain and challenging economies in our past. 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. With fewer people to hire at this moment, this should give each team an opportunity to further prioritize what matters most to customers and the business, and to be more productive.
We still intend to hire a meaningful number of people in 2023, and remain excited about our significant investments in our larger businesses, as well as newer initiatives like Prime Video, Alexa, Grocery, Kuiper, Zoox, and Healthcare.
If you have questions about how this pause on incremental hiring for the next few months impacts your team, please speak with your manager in the coming days.
Beth