E-commerce major has asked impacted employees to meet with the leadership team, and company has also proposed a 5 months severance pay.
Last week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spoke of a plan to eliminate over 18,000 jobs globally citing economic uncertainties.
Jessy's statement indicated that the layoffs would begin on Jan. 18, but Amazon has already started informing a section of its employees in India about the continuity of their roles over email.
In its email, Amazon has reportedly asked the impacted employees to meet with the leadership team, and the company has also proposed a 5 months severance pay. The company is also looking at merging various roles and is also offering a voluntary separation policy.
According to industry sources, around 1,000 employees — approximately 1 per cent of the Amazon workforce in India — could be affected.
“Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT (People, Experience and Technology) organizations,”
Andy Jassy had said in a statement.
A post purportedly made by an Amazon India employee on the anonymous community app for Indian professionals, Grapevine, said people are "crying in the office," The Hindu reported.
“75% of my team is gone. Although I’m in the remaining 25% I don’t feel motivated to work anymore... They are firing people in cabins. People are crying in the office,”
said an anonymous employee.
Meanwhile, the Labour Commissioner Office, Pune, has sent a notice to Amazon regarding implementation of a voluntary separation policy and layoffs based on a complaint from Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) and has asked Amazon management to be present on January 17 for an explanation.
“The voluntary separation policy implemented was never submitted to the labour ministry for review which is a violation of existing labour laws."
NITES president, Harpreet Singh Saluja, said:
“We will continue to fight for the rights of aggrieved employees who were unethically forced to opt for voluntary separation policy and were laid off illegally.”
Sources: Telegraph India, The Hindu
