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☆ Amazon discontinues charity donation program amid cost cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon said Wednesday it plans to shut down its charity donation program, in the latest example of the company's broader cost-cutting efforts. Through the program, called AmazonSmile, the e-retailer donates a percentage of eligible purchases on the site to the shoppers' chosen charity organization. Amazon said it has donated roughly $500 million to charities since the program launched in 2013. Amazon now plans to wind down AmazonSmile by Feb. 20, the company said in a notice to customers posted to its website. "After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped," the company said.

☆ Amazon cited by Labor Department for exposing warehouse workers to safety hazards
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued citations against Amazon at three of its warehouses for exposing workers to safety hazards, the department announced Wednesday. Amazon also faces a separate investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office's civil division that centers around worker safety hazards at the e-retailer's facilities nationwide. Amazon warehouse workers have previously complained that the company's pace of work prevents them from taking adequate bathroom and rest breaks, and leads to unfair disciplinary actions. In April, workers at an Amazon warehouse on New York's Staten Island voted to form the company's first U.S. union. Workers at another Staten Island facility rejected a union, while a second election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama is being contested.

☆ Read the memos Amazon execs sent to employees about job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Employees were notified of the cuts in emails sent by Doug Herrington, the company's worldwide retail chief, and human resources head Beth Galetti, CNBC confirmed. Amazon's human resources and stores divisions are likely to be among the organizations most severely impacted by the job cuts. Notification emails will be sent out to impacted employees shortly, and we expect all notifications in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica to be completed by end of the day today. Although other companies might have balked at the short-term economics, we prioritized investing for customers and employees during these unprecedented times. Conversations with impacted employees took place around the world today, and this morning, Pacific Time, notification messages were sent to all impacted employees in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica.

☆ Walmart strikes a deal with Salesforce to sell more of its tech to other retailers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Melissa Repko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Walmart Global Chief Technology Officer Suresh Kumar said the deal with Salesforce will help Walmart improve the experience for shoppers. For instance, as Walmart's GoLocal has more packages to deliver from more retailers, its drivers will have denser routes, he said. It began selling Store Assist, technology that its own store employees use, in the summer. In November, Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said Walmart added more than 8,000 sellers to its third-party marketplace in the fiscal third quarter. Walmart will stand out in its app store as a technology by retailers and for retailers, he added.

☆ Amazon union victory at Staten Island warehouse upheld by federal labor board
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon workers arrive with paperwork to unionize at the NLRB office in Brooklyn, New York, October 25, 2021. A federal labor agency on Wednesday certified an independent union's landmark victory at Amazon 's Staten Island warehouse and threw out a litany of objections filed by the e-retailer. In April, a majority of the roughly 8,300 workers at Amazon's Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, voted to join the Amazon Labor Union, becoming the company's first unionized facility in the U.S. Amazon sought to overturn the results of the election, alleging the National Labor Relations Board office that oversaw the election interfered in the union drive. "As we've said since the beginning, we don't believe this election process was fair, legitimate, or representative of the majority of what our team wants," Nantel said. Workers at a nearby facility on Staten Island rejected unionization in May, and the ALU lost an election at an Albany warehouse in October.

☆ Amazon expands its service that adds Prime badge to other sites
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon said Tuesday it's expanding a service that lets merchants add the vaunted Prime badge to products on their own websites. The Buy with Prime program, first announced last April, allows Prime members to check out on other retailers' sites using their Amazon account and receive free, two-day delivery. The service launched as an invite-only program, but will become available to all U.S. sellers by Jan. 31, Amazon said. The e-retailer also announced a new add-on to the program that lets merchants show reviews and ratings from their Amazon listings on their sites. Amazon did not disclose how much it charges merchants to use Buy with Prime.

☆ Amazon still 'fully committed' to Alexa despite job cuts, hardware chief says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The company's devices and services organization, which oversees the development of products such as Alexa, Echo smart speakers and Kindle e-readers, was among the groups affected. Still, Amazon remains "fully committed" to the Alexa unit despite the company taking steps to be more disciplined with costs in "a very uncertain economy," Limp said. At one point, Amazon had 5,000 people working on Alexa and Echo. Amazon has sold devices such as the Echo at or near cost because its goal isn't to make money from them. The prices of some commodities used in Amazon devices, such as memory and displays, has increased, and those could get passed along to consumers, he said.

☆ Amazon lost half its value this year as tech stocks got crushed and recession fears grew
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon and then CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, October 25, 2016. It was a brutal year for mega-cap tech stocks across the board. Only Tesla , down 68%, and Meta , off 66%, have had a worse year among the most valuable tech companies. That drove Amazon's stock to record highs as sales soared. It's since paused or abandoned plans to open some new facilities, and its head count shrank in the second quarter.

☆ Amazon stock gives up last of its pandemic gains after almost 50% slump in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Amazon 's stock price has lost all of its pandemic-fueled gains, falling back to where it was trading when Covid-19 started shutting down the U.S. economy. Amazon has fallen sharply this year amid a broader tech selloff tied to soaring inflation, a worsening economy and rising interest rates. It's a marked reversal from 2020, when Amazon stock rallied amid unprecedented online demand. Amazon saw a rush of orders from consumers at the height of the pandemic, as many avoided trips to physical stores and turned to the web for essential and non-essential goods. By early 2022, higher costs tied to inflation, supply chain constraints and the war in Ukraine generated further pressure on Amazon and other tech companies.

☆ Tech layoffs send visa holders on frantic search for employment to avoid deportation
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Workers on temporary visas often have 60 to 90 days to find a new gig so they can avoid being deported. More than 50,000 tech workers were let go from their jobs in November, according to data collected by the website Layoffs.fyi. A search for "layoffs H1B" on LinkedIn surfaces a stream of posts from workers who recently lost their jobs and are expressing concern about the 60-day unemployment window. An engineer who was recently laid off by gene-sequencing technology company Illumina said he hoped his employer would sponsor his transfer to an H-1B visa. WATCH: Tech layoffs double from October to November

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says cost-cutting review revealed the economy is 'more uncertain' than previously thought
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Andrew Ross Sorkin speaks with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the New York Times DealBook Summit in the Appel Room at the Jazz At Lincoln Center on November 30, 2022 in New York City. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been entrenched in a sweeping review of the company's expenses, marked with the largest job cuts in its history, shuttered programs and a pause on warehouse expansion. Speaking at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Jassy said a monthslong cost-cutting review revealed the economy was "more uncertain" than previously thought, which prompted the company to escalate its efforts to rein in expenses. Business Insider also reported on the future of Amazon's Alexa unit being in jeopardy. WATCH: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on shifting consumer spending habits

☆ Amazon touts record sales over holiday shopping weekend
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The company said the holiday shopping weekend was its "biggest ever," with consumers snapping up hundreds of millions of products during the period. Independent businesses selling on Amazon surpassed $1 billion in sales during the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend, the company said. Amazon didn't provide sales figures for the five-day shopping weekend, which tends to be some of its busiest days in the holiday period. The company's fourth-quarter results, typically released in late January or early February, will give Wall Street a more complete picture of the holiday shopping season. WATCH: Holiday shopping weekend saw 20 million more shoppers than last year, says NRF CEO Matt Shay

☆ Walmart overtakes Amazon in shoppers' search for Black Friday bargains
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Walmart is top of mind for holiday shoppers who are hunting for Black Friday deals, according to new research. Searches for Black Friday discounts on Walmart surged 386% year over year, leapfrogging rival retailer Amazon , which last year ranked first in Captify's survey of most searched retailers on Black Friday. The National Retail Federation said it expects holiday sales during November and December to rise between 6% to 8% from last year, a decline when factoring in the effect of inflation. Black Friday is expected to pull in $9 billion in online sales, a 1% jump from the previous year, according to Adobe. Businesses who host their online stores on Shopify were raking in $1.52 million per minute on Thanksgiving Day, according to the company.

Cinemas stocks got a boost Wednesday after a report said Amazon plans to spend $1 billion a year on theatrical film releases. The tech company plans to make between 12 and 15 movies for movie theaters each year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A smaller number of films will be produced in 2023 as Amazon builds up its output, the report said. Amazon has deepened its investments in original content over the years through its Prime Video streaming unit, as well as its movie and television studios. Earlier this year, the e-retailer bolstered its media ambitions when it acquired legendary movie maker MGM Studios for $8.45 billion.

☆ Amazon is down 40% this year — is now the time to buy? Market pros give their take
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Zavier Ong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Two market pros faced off on CNBC's " Street Signs Asia " on Thursday to make a case for and against buying the stock. Long-term investment story Veteran tech investor Gene Munster believes "there is no company like Amazon" when it comes to e-commerce and logistics. "We both know this has been the carrot that has been held out there forever when it comes to Amazon. It's not about revenue growth. Davidson, noted that Amazon is now a mature e-commerce company — one that requires $4.7 billion in incremental revenue just to post revenue growth of one-percentage point.

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says layoffs will continue into next year
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Amazon will continue to lay off employees in the coming year, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo to workers on Thursday. "Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023," Jassy wrote. Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023. And, as has been the case this week, we will prioritize communicating directly with impacted employees before making broad public or internal announcements. Amazon has weathered uncertainty and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so.

☆ Amazon is looking to trim headcount through a voluntary buyout program
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Amazon recommended all employees in its Seattle office to work from home, leaving much of downtown nearly void of people. Amazon is offering voluntary buyouts to some employees inside the company, as it looks for ways to trim its headcount beyond the massive layoffs already underway. "Voluntary severance" offers were sent out Tuesday and Wednesday to some divisions, including human resources and employee services, according to internal company documents viewed by CNBC. Amazon will inform employees next month that their resignation has been accepted, and their last day of employment will be Dec. 23. The volunteer severance program is a "first step" to realign businesses within Amazon, the documents said, indicating that the divisions could undergo layoffs in the near future.

☆ Amazon lays off some devices employees: Read the memo from hardware chief Dave Limp
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon is laying off some employees in its devices and services unit, hardware chief Dave Limp wrote in a memo to workers on Wednesday. The e-retailer is consolidating some teams and programs in its devices and services unit after "a deep set of reviews" of the business, Limp wrote. "It pains me to have to deliver this news as we know we will lose talented Amazonians from the Devices & Services org as a result." The job cuts are part of broader layoffs hitting Amazon as it stares down a worsening economic outlook. While the cuts may total 10,000 people, there is no specific target for total job cuts, the person said.

☆ Amazon starts cutting jobs, with layoffs hitting Alexa unit and cloud gaming division
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.Com Inc., speaks during the GeekWire Summit in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. Amazon on Tuesday began laying off employees in its corporate and tech workforce as CEO Andy Jassy steps up efforts to rein in costs. The company notified workers in several divisions, including Alexa and the Luna cloud gaming unit, that they were being let go, according to LinkedIn posts from Amazon employees who said they had been impacted. Amazon is aiming to eliminate about 10,000 jobs, mostly in retail, devices and human resources, The New York Times reported Monday. One employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said Amazon informed her earlier this month that it wouldn't be renewing her contract.

☆ Amazon introduces 'Sparrow' robotic arm that can do repetitive warehouse tasks
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon on Thursday unveiled a new robotic arm that can sort and lift packages in warehouses. Amazon on Thursday showed off a new robot that could one day assist warehouse workers with some of the more tedious aspects of the job. The company unveiled "Sparrow," a robotic arm that can pluck millions of items of varying shapes and sizes, on stage at the Delivering the Future conference near Boston, where it showcased new robotics, transportation and last-mile delivery technologies. Amazon has steadily added to its fleet of warehouse robots since it acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million a decade ago. Amazon in June unveiled its first fully autonomous robot that can operate alongside warehouse workers, in addition to other systems that can sort and move packages.

☆ Lyft shares fall after disappointing revenue, active rider miss
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Shares of Lyft plunged more than 19% in early trading Tuesday, a day after the company reported worse-than-expected revenue for the third quarter, and active riders missed analysts' estimates. Lyft had 22.9 million active riders in the fourth quarter of 2019, for example. Revenue of $1.05 billion also came in below analysts' expected $1.06 billion. For the current quarter, Lyft said it expects to report revenue between $1.15 billion and $1.17 billion, which is in line with consensus estimates of $1.16 billion, according to StreetAccount. WATCH: Lyft beats EPS but misses on revenue and active riders

☆ Elon Musk says Twitter has had 'massive' revenue drop as advertisers pause spending
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk, Founder and Chief Engineer of SpaceX, speaks during the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, DC, United States on March 9, 2020. Twitter has suffered a "massive drop in revenue" because of advertisers pausing advertising on the social media platform, Elon Musk, the new owner of the company, said Friday. In recent days, a number of companies said they would temporarily pause their advertising spending on Twitter to see how things would change there under Musk's ownership. Tesla competitors General Motors and Audi, and food titan General Mills are among the companies that have paused Twitter spending after Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition on October 28. Ad giant IPG advised clients to temporarily pause their Twitter media plans as well.

☆ Twitter sued by employees after mass layoffs begin
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk's Twitter profile is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. Twitter was sued by former employees who say they were not given enough notice under federal and California law that they had lost their jobs amid ongoing mass layoffs. Twitter employees are expecting the company to cut 50% of its workforce, or roughly 3,700 employees. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to provide advance notice, generally within 60 days, of mass layoffs or plant closings. It also seeks to prevent Twitter from soliciting employees to sign documents that could give up their right to participate in litigation.

☆ Amazon pauses hiring for corporate workforce
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon is pausing hiring for roles in its corporate workforce, the company announced in a memo to staff Thursday. The company had already announced last month it would freeze hiring for corporate roles in its retail business, but the latest update affects its other businesses. Amazon’s HR chief Beth Galetti wrote in the memo that the company moved to further restrict new hiring amid a worsening economic outlook and after it hired rapidly in recent years. CEO Andy Jassy has also aggressively curtailed expenses across the company in recent months amid fears of a recession, rising inflation and soaring interest rates. Amazon says it employs about 75,000 people in the Seattle area, including its corporate offices there.

☆ DoorDash stock surges after sales beat expectations
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

However, its net loss widened to $295 million, or a loss of 77 cents per share. It reported a net loss of $101 million, or a loss of 30 cents per share, in the year-ago period. For the current quarter, it forecast gross order value to be between $13.9 billion and $14.2 billion, which is higher than consensus estimates of $13.73 billion, according to StreetAccount. That's also an increase from the third quarter, when gross order value jumped 30% year-over-year to $13.5 billion. Gross order value measures how much users are spending on orders and subscription fees.

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