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Amazon’s first quarter earnings call shed light on the company’s shifting investments following leadership’s decision to cut a whopping 27,000 jobs. The widespread cuts, which severely diminished the tech giant's HR team, were said to be an effort to help streamline costs.
Amazon began its latest layoffs last week, targeting HR and cloud computing employees. And an internal memo sent to Amazon Web Services (AWS) hiring managers on Tuesday revealed that the company would restrict the number of hires the cloud business can make, going so far as to employ a new headcount management system to better monitor hiring plans.
The moves aren't a surprise. Late last year, the company announced it would freeze corporate hiring, slow the expansion of its warehouses, and end some of its more experimental projects like Amazon Care and its Halo device division.
“Like most leadership teams, we'll continue to evaluate what we're seeing in our business and proceed adaptively,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the Thursday earnings call. “But while we've taken several actions to streamline our costs, we've been able to do so while still pursuing the key strategic long-term investments that we believe can meaningfully make customers' lives better and potentially change what Amazon is.”
Translation: Amazon will invest more heavily into “noncore” businesses as growth slows among its signature e-commerce services.
During the earnings call, Jassy said Amazon would expand its international segment and pour more resources into its “still nascent” grocery business. Jassy also confirmed that Amazon plans to further develop its Buy with Prime program, entertainment, devices, health care, and its low Earth orbit satellite—Project Kuiper—to help people, companies, and governments with limited to no internet access.
Areas in which the company appeared to be still hiring earlier this year included its Ring doorbell and pharmacy businesses, and it's still listing job openings for engineers, supply chain managers, and sales representatives.
“It's hard to predict that all of these will be successful, but only one or two working would change our business over the long term,” said Jassy.
Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton
