Days after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy confirmed that the firm is planning to lay off thousands of its employees globally, the eCommerce giant has reportedly begun laying off its employees in India. Earlier reports had suggested that Amazon India will cut 1% of its workforce in India.
Even though the layoff was to begin on January 18, the company has started informing the impacted employees over email. As per an India Today report, loss-making teams are among the most impacted. Hitting multiple departments operating from India, across offices in Bengaluru, Gurugram, and others, the latest round of layoffs has affected both fresher and experienced employees
In its email, the company reportedly asked the impacted employees to communicate with the leadership team to get more clarity on the situation. Moreover, the company has promised to provide 5 months of severance pay.
It is worth noting that Amazon CEO in a blog post on January 5 stated that the company will be laying off employees in additional roles mostly from Amazon Stores and People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organizations. Andy Jassy said that in the last few years, the company has over-hired employees.
Along with severance pay, Jassy also offered to provide health insurance and external job placement support to the employees laid off.
“We are working to support those who are affected and are providing packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support, the Amazon CEO wrote in his blog post.
In another development, the Assistant Labour Commissioner’s office in Pune issued a notice to Amazon India following a complaint filed by the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), a city-based IT sector employees union.
NITES accused Amazon of “clearly violating the existing provisions of Indian labour laws” in a complaint filed last week with the assistant labour commissioner in Pune.
“The implemented voluntary separation policy was never submitted to the labour ministry for review, which is a violation of existing labour laws,” it continued.
“We will continue to fight for the rights of aggrieved employees who were unethically forced to opt for Voluntary Separation Policy and were laid off illegally,” said NITES president Harpreet Singh Saluja.