Tech stock layoffs aren’t anything new, particularly these days. We’ve seen them all over the spectrum, and now, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is stepping in for another round of layoffs. Investors were pretty enthused about the carnage, though, sending Amazon shares higher in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
This time, interestingly, the layoffs are specific, targeting both its cloud computing and human resources divisions. Both grew at rapid paces as the cloud division found itself a hit with users on its Amazon Web Services and other operations. Human resources, meanwhile, needed to ramp up staffing in a big way to help meet the demand for AWS and similar services. But now, with demand faltering, Amazon is cutting back on its hires and showing around 9,000 people the door.
This batch of firings is just the latest; only last week, Amazon ran its sickle through its advertising unit. That’s a small surprise given advertisers’ recent pullbacks in the face of a likely economic downturn. But when staffers were also dismissed from Amazon’s video gaming and Twitch units, that suggested something even bigger afoot. Video gaming is a big market, no matter what the economic conditions are. But regardless of the division, taking all of these layoffs together combines to the biggest overall set of layoffs that Amazon has engaged in…ever.
Yet, despite the layoffs, analysts are very much on Amazon’s side. Currently, by a factor of 35 Buy ratings to one Hold, Amazon is considered a Strong Buy by analyst consensus. Plus, Amazon stock also offers 27.98% upside potential thanks to its average price target of $135.50 per share.
