Amazon Layoffs: Pune Labour Commissioner’s Office To Conduct Meeting With Company On January 17

After Amazon announced layoffs, the government has sent a notice to Amazon and called a meeting on January 17 over the layoffs and its voluntary separation programme. Pune’s labour commissioner’s office has sent the notice to the e-commerce giant.

“It is…informed that a joint meeting has to be held in front of the undersigned in his hall on 17/01/2023 at 03:00 PM regarding the lay-off of workers in your establishment/factory,” according to the notice issued by the assistant labour commissioner in Pune.

It added that the representatives of the management and trade union should be present with the necessary documents and records as well as the power of attorney.

Amazon is planning to lay off about 1,000 employees in India as part of its biggest retrenchment exercise across the globe. The decision to eliminate 18,000 job roles across the globe will impact about 1,000 employees in India.

Recently, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said it will cut more than 18,000 jobs from its workforce starting January 18, citing “the uncertain economy” and the fact that the online retail giant had “hired rapidly” during the pandemic.

“Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles,” Jassy said in a statement to his staff. The company had announced 10,000 layoffs in November.

According to the report, Amazon has around 1 lakh employees in India and the decision will impact 1 per cent of staff in the country.

In November also, the labour ministry sent a notice to Amazon over its voluntary separation programme (VSP) and asked to provide details related to it.

It had come after NITES, a Pune-based union working for the rights of employees of IT companies, submitted a petition and requested the Union government and the state labour authorities to conduct an inquiry regarding the “unethical and illegal layoffs” email being sent to employees by Amazon. The IT union claimed that Amazon forcibly terminated a large number of employees in India.

After Amazon announced layoffs across functions, its India arm started urging its employees to quit voluntarily by sending out a voluntary separation programme (VSP). It told employees that eligible employees will have the opportunity to resign voluntarily from employment in exchange for the VSP benefits.

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