Amazon freezes corporate hiring in global retail business

More than 10,000 openings were posted in Amazon's retail business prior to the announcement

Amazon is freezing corporate hiring in its retail business for the rest of the year, according to an internal announcement obtained by The New York Times, making it the latest company to pull back amid the economic uncertainty.

The announcement, in an email to recruiters, said the company was halting global hiring for all corporate roles, including technology positions, in its stores business, which covers Amazon’s physical and online retail business and its logistics operations. More than 10,000 openings were posted in that division, which accounts for the bulk of Amazon’s sales, as of Monday evening.

The broad freeze won’t affect the company’s more profitable cloud computing division. Some roles, such as student hiring and field positions, were exempt from the pause, the email said.

“Amazon continues to have a significant number of open roles available across the company,” Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement. He said some parts of the business were more mature than others, “and we expect to keep adjusting our hiring strategies in each of these businesses at various junctures.”

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The freeze at the nation’s second-largest private employer is part of a wider cooling in the job market, or at least another sign that it is no longer at a raging boil.

On Tuesday, the Labor Department released data showing that while many parts of the job market remained strong, employers were slowing the number of roles they were looking to fill. About 10.1 million positions were open in August, down from 11.2 million in July. Federal Reserve officials have hoped that rising interest rates could lower inflation by reducing hiring — and with it the pressure on wages — without requiring widespread layoffs.

Layoffs and hiring slowdowns have hit a wide swath of the tech industry in recent months. That includes startups as well as publicly traded companies like Peloton and Shopify, which announced in late July that it would lay off 10 per cent of its workforce after incorrectly predicting how much e-commerce would boom as the pandemic receded.

Large companies have not been immune, either. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, told employees last week that it was freezing hiring for most positions.