Amazon recently laid off 18,000 employees among its corporate workforce, after cutting a number of employees in November last year…reports Asian Lite News
As it cuts costs across the verticals amid the ongoing economic meltdown, Amazon has now halted construction of its second headquarters in the US.
Called ‘HQ2’, the second headquarters of the ecommerce company is being built in the state of Virginia (its first HQ is in Seattle, Washington State).
John Schoettler, Amazon’s real estate head, said in a statement the company is pushing out the groundbreaking of PenPlace, the second phase of the sprawling northern Virginia campus, reports CNBC.
“We’re always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees, and since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we’ve decided to shift the groundbreaking of PenPlace (the second phase of HQ2) out a bit,” Schoettler said.
The first phase of the campus is expected to open on time in June this year, that will house 8,000 employees.
In 2019, the ecommerce giant had announced to halt plans to build its new headquarters in New York after it faced pushback from local activists and city council leaders.
Amazon recently laid off 18,000 employees among its corporate workforce, after cutting a number of employees in November last year.
“In the short term, we face an uncertain economy, but we remain quite optimistic about the long-term opportunities for Amazon,” according to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
“We’re working really hard to streamline our costs and trying to do so at the same time so that we don’t give up on the long-term strategic investments that we believe can meaningfully change broad customer experiences and change Amazon over the long-term,” Jassy said on the analysts’ call last month.
As part of its cost-cutting effort, Amazon plans to shut eight of its Go convenience stores in the US.
According to CNBC, the tech giant will close two Go stores in New York City, two locations in Seattle, and four stores in San Francisco on April 1.
In addition, the company said it will work to help affected employees secure other roles at the company.
“Like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimisation decisions along the way,” Amazon spokesperson Jessica Martin, was quoted as saying.
“In this case, we’ve decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the US, and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon Go stores,” she added.
Moreover, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the company is also temporarily pausing expansion of the Fresh grocery chain until it can find a format that resonates with customers and “where we like the economics”, the report mentioned.
In 2018, the first Amazon Go store opened to the public at the company’s headquarters in Seattle.
