Amazon Employees Fear ‘No One Is Safe’ as Layoffs Roil the Ranks

tech.hindustantimes.com:

“No one is safe.” 

So wrote an Amazon.com Inc. employee on an internal chat room as the company began the largest round of layoffs in its history. The mood, especially in the hard-hit devices team, reflected the shock and dismay of people more accustomed to growing budgets and moonshots than talk of recession and austerity. 

Devices chief Dave Limp, in a note to his team on Wednesday, said the firings pained him. He pledged severance payments for people who can't find other jobs inside the company. But for many recipients his note was little consolation, and some wondered why Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy, considered by some a gentler touch than predecessor Jeff Bezos, hadn't addressed the troops the way Mark Zuckerberg did when announcing job cuts at Meta Platforms Inc. 

Lacking clarity from managers, employees are seeking clues from one another about which team or worker could be the next one cut. Those fearing the ax are asking those who have been fired to describe subject lines in emails from human resources or other warning signs. Some workers complained that they couldn't concentrate fearing they might be let go at any minute.

“The lack of transparency from leadership is frankly disgusting,” one employee wrote in an internal chat, reviewed by Bloomberg. “How can we expect to be Earth's Greatest Employer if literally everyone in the company is trying to figure out if they will be keeping their jobs.” Amazon, through a spokeswoman, declined to address employee concerns about Jassy not addressing staff.

Amazon spent much of the last two decades in growth mode, spending billions on new warehouses, cloud-computing data centers and hiring to back a range of bets. Investors trusted that Bezos, who had preached building