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Complete Circle CIO Gurmeet Chadha condemned big job cuts disguised as innovation and argued that technological advancements should not harm people’s livelihoods.
Amazon.
Social media and news websites have been abuzz this week over possible layoffs at Amazon. The speculations could be stemming from an earlier announcement by the e-commerce giant in September 2024 regarding a major restructuring to save costs.
In the backdrop of these reports, Complete Circle CIO Gurmeet Chadha said these corporate giants call their HR heads as “people experience head” and employees as their “families”, calling it all a “drama”.
“Amazon is laying off 10000 more people after laying off 18k in November. They call their HR heads as People Experience Head, Chief People Officer and fancy names… employees r called families. Sab drama!!” he said in a post on X.
Chadha condemned big job cuts disguised as innovation, and argued that technological advancements should not harm people’s livelihoods. He further said that AI and other disruptive technologies are pointless if they inflict suffering. “AI or any disruption which brings misery to ur own people is useless,” he added.
In September 2024, Amazon had announced a major restructuring plan. As part of this, around 18,000 employees were laid off. The latest reports suggest 14,000 layoffs early this year. The latest move reportedly aligns with CEO Andy Jassy’s aim “to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15 per cent by the end of Q1 2025″.
“Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today,” he wrote in a blogpost addressing Amazon employees on September 16, 2024. If we do this work well, it will increase our teammates’ ability to move fast, clarify and invigorate their sense of ownership, drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers (and the business), decrease bureaucracy, and strengthen our organizations’ ability to make customers’ lives better and easier every day, he added.
