Photo: 123RF
Amazon NZ has proposed to cut New Zealand staff numbers.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) pulled staff into a midday meeting on Thursday to announce it was proposing to cut jobs as part of global lay-offs.
It is understood a consultation period will run until Tuesday.
An AWS spokesperson declined to answer questions relating to how many people would be made redundant in New Zealand.
"The role reductions in AWS were driven by reprioritisation decisions, which required us to reallocate resources," she said.
"In most cases this involved people shifting projects, priorities, or teams, but in some cases we didn't have the right skill match for these priorities. We continue to be very excited and optimistic about our AWS business, which continues to have very strong pipeline, migration, and fundamentals, even in a challenging economic environment."
AWS opened a new office spread over two floors in the PWC building at Commercial Bay in downtown Auckland in 2021.
It has more than 100 staff and offers more than 200 services to businesses via its cloud computing platform.
In New Zealand its customers include Air New Zealand, BNZ, Ministry of Health, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Xero, Vodafone, Sharesies, Deloitte and Orion Health.
Amazon has announced plans to spent $7.5b on a centre in Auckland. Photo: 123RF
The AWS spokesperson said the company was still committed to its $7.5 billion investment to open an AWS Region in Auckland in 2024.
"Our AWS Region will enable developers, startups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and non-profit organisations to run their applications and serve customers with low latency from data centres located right here in New Zealand," she said.
The job cuts come after Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy announced 18,000 job cuts across the company in November last year and another 9000 last month.
In a letter to staff at AWS team, as reported by CNBC, Amazon Web Services chief executive Adam Selipsky said the company had made the "difficult decision" to eliminate some roles across Amazon globally, including within AWS.
"I wanted to let you know that conversations with impacted AWS employees started today, with notification messages sent to all impacted employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica.
"In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees."
The redundancies come after a tough start to the year for tech companies.
In January Google axed 12,000 of its staff and Microsoft laid off more than 10,000, followed by Spotify which axed 6 percent of its workforce.
In New Zealand, Xero announced it would cut up to 800 jobs across its business in March, while NZX-listed tech company Trade Window planned to cut up to 35 roles as the sector faces a "challenging funding market."
* This story was originally published on Stuff.