The Seattle-based technology giant is letting go of at least 500 employees in India, and the process is ongoing, they said.
This is part of the additional layoffs Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced in late March, impacting about 9,000 employees globally.
In its ecommerce business, Amazon has shut down Amazon Digital Kendra, a seller support function, and employees who worked in the division have been laid off or moved to other parts of the business, one of the sources said.
Some of the seller onboarding functions in some tier-2 cities such as Kochi and Lucknow have also been shut down as a part of the restructuring, the person said. He added that Amazon Digital Kendra could be revamped and relaunched soon.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the matter and did not respond to queries.
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This is the second round of layoffs at Amazon in recent months. Following the rout of tech stocks globally, including Amazon’s, the company had initially announced in January that around 18,000 employees would be fired.ET was the first to report in November last year that Amazon would be axing jobs in India as part of its global plans.
The company has shut down multiple businesses in India late last year, including its edtech, food delivery and wholesale distribution businesses.
In April, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts the growth from its cloud business AWS would slow further as its business customers braced for turbulence and clamped down on spending.
The latest development comes as Amazon’s ecommerce business growth is slowing down in India.
ET reported on May 11 that shopping across ecommerce marketplaces is growing slower than anticipated, and several sources and brands working with Amazon India said the etailer has seen the highest impact among the leading ecommerce platforms.
Its ecommerce business is still undergoing a transition as one of its biggest sellers, Appario is transferring inventory to new sellers so as to comply with the rules in India.
Indian regulations do not permit a foreign-owned entity running an online marketplace and its group companies to own stakes in any seller on the platform, or to have control over their inventory.
Amazon and Patni group had entered into a joint venture to create Appario. This would be the second time a major seller firm, where Amazon held a stake, is having to stop operations in the face of regulatory changes here.
In 2019, Amazon had reduced its stake in Cloudtail parent Prione to 24% but then last year acquired 100% by buying out Catamaran Ventures’ stake in it. This led to Cloudtail having to withdraw from Amazon India. Catamaran Ventures is the investment arm of Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy.
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