Another round of layoffs began at an e-commerce company-Amazon, and this time Jeff Bezos-led firm has decided to wind up operations in the fitness band and health-focused department, Halo. The divisions are no longer on their websites. The App would not operate from August 1, 2023, as per an insider. The layoff has impacted multiple regions across the globe including North America. An estimated 9,000 employees are said to bear the layoffs. However, the total number of employees that have been impacted is not clear yet.
In its blog post on April 26, Amazon said that it has informed employees in the US and Canada already. “In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees,” the e-commerce giant said.
The firm has confirmed to provide those affected job cut packages that include severance, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.
With the layoffs, e-commerce has decided to cease production of all health-focused wearables including Halo Band, Halo View, and Halo Rise devices.
Besides, Amazon also sent a mail to its Halo customers promising full refunds of their devices- Amazon Halo View, Amazon Halo Band, Amazon Halo Rise, and Amazon Halo accessory bands that were purchased in the preceding 12 months.
“In addition, any unused prepaid Halo subscription fees will be refunded to your original payment method. If you have a paid subscription, as of today (April 26), you will no longer be charged the monthly subscription fee,” it said.
Amazon joined the layoff bandwagon in November last year, amidst rising concerns for recession. It began cutting costs by freezing hiring, ending some projects, and slowing warehouse expansion.
Notably like Facebook’s parent company Meta and Google’s parent company Alphabet, Amazon also increased hiring during the pandemic to meet the growing demand from homebound Americans shopping online.