Amazon ‘over-hiring’: Nearly 25,000 openings posted when only 7,798 were cleared

Amazon recently announced 9,000 additional job cuts.

Amazon posted over three times the number of job openings actually approved in 2022, leading to an over-hiring situation, Insider reported, quoting from an internal document.

The e-commerce giant recently announced a second round of job cuts, after eliminating 18,000 roles in January. Like several other big corporations, it cited over-hiring in periods of boom as the reason behind mass layoffs.

The latest terminations will affect 9,000 employees across Amazon Web Services, People, Experience, and Technology (PXT), Advertising, and Twitch.

At Amazon, 9,000 more heads will roll in the second round of layoffs

According to Insider, a team within the Web Services Department had posted 24,988 open positions, when in fact there were approvals for only 7,798.

Amazon acknowledged the over-hiring in an internal document, admitting its processes were prone to inconsistency, error, and potential mis-use".

One of the company's former recruiting managers said because of such over-hiring, leaders would "squeeze people in where they could."

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this week that because of uncertainty in the near future, the company had to be "more streamlined in our costs and headcount".

He described the additional layoffs as necessary for downsizing, after sustained hiring over the years.

"Rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we've made them so people had the information as soon as possible," the Amazon CEO told staff.

All of Big Tech, expect Apple, has laid off or announced plans to sack employees.

Meta has sacked nearly 25 percent of its workforce in a matter of months. Google announced 12,000 job cuts in January, while, Microsoft announced 10,000 employees in the coming months.