Amazon is again laying off around 180 employees from its gaming division. The latest round of job cuts is the second in a row when the e-commerce giant. It has been reported further that the layoff is part of its broader restriction and in an internal memo shared with the employees of the gaming division, the company stated that the move is a strategy to focus on restructuring efforts and focus on the areas which have the highest growth potential.
The official email was sent to the staff on Monday and as viewed by Reuters, Christoph Hartmann, who is the Vice President of Amazon Games stated: "After our initial restructuring in April, it became clear that we needed to further concentrate our resources on the areas that are experiencing the highest potential for driving our business forward. We've listened to our customers and we know delivering free games every month is what they want most, so we are refining our Prime benefit to increase our focus there."
When did Amazon start laying off its employees?
Amazon started laying off the employees on Monday (13 November 2023), informing the focused individuals that their positions had been dissolved. It is the second round of divisional layoffs which took place this year itself from the e-commerce giant.
As per the reports, Amazon started reducing the size of the team in its streaming music and podcast division last week (in November itself), followed by a small number of job cut from the human resources unit which was known as People Experience and Technology (PXT).
About the gaming department of Amazon
Amazon Gaming division dedicatedly provides Twitch channels, downloadable games and other services every month. It further focuses on the development and publication of games like 'Blue Protocol', offering complimentary games to Prime members too.
The latest layoffs are the second round of layoffs in the Games Division, as the company previously laid off around 100 jobs in the games unit. Over the past year, Amazon has cut more than 27,000 jobs, following a wave of U.S. tech layoffs. Amazon's third-quarter net income has exceeded analyst expectations, and the company has further forecasted the revenue in the final quarter of the year which will be roughly in line with expectations.
Furthermore, despite the job cuts, Amazon is hiring new employees as well. Hartmann stated that in his email he mentioned that the company is still hiring for the other roles under the division.
Amazon’s move on Language models
Amazon is reportedly making a big bet when it comes to the language models. They are investing heavily in Olympus, a new model which has around 2 trillion parameters and aims to rival the best from OpenAI and Alphabet.
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