Amazon’s new workers’ policy has sent shockwaves through its employees. The new policy states that an employee must relocate to a new major city hub, primarily in Seattle, Arlington, or Washington, DC, and if not ready, they must resign. These two options have put the employees in a bind as they either have to uproot their families and move to a major city, or face job termination.
The employees have been given 30 days to make a decision whether they will relocate or resign. If the employee decides to relocate, he will get 60 more days to make the move. The news was not shared with the affected employees in an official announcement; instead, it was communicated in one-on-one meetings.
Why is Amazon forcing employees to relocate
In a statement to Reuters, Amazon said it is a ‘visionary strategy’ to align teams with its business roadmap. A company spokesperson told Reuters, “ As part of our ongoing work to make our teams and programs operate more efficiently and to better align with our business roadmap, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles within the Books organization.”
Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, said building a large team is not the path to advancement for the company, rather, e-commerce achieves more with fewer resources. He said that the company is planning a layoff as well in the coming years, while hinting that Artificial Intelligence can do a lot than an individual nowadays. Jassy also said that AI will lead to cutting jobs at his own company.
The relocation policy has also been introduced to keep the workers in close touch with their managers across the countries.
Impact on affected employees
A person who does not wish to relocate has to resign without getting a severance package. A redundancy payment, which acts as an emergency door for many to rescue them from sudden financial instability, is also closed. Mid-career professionals and parents with established roots are especially distressed by the decision. Many are unwilling to uproot themselves from communities they’ve been part of for years.
A prediction realized
The CEO had also predicted a layoff recently, where he said the company will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other kinds of jobs. He had also asked the employees to be cautious about AI as it may replace them in future. Over the past five years, Amazon has already laid off approximately 27,000 employees.
