[kburman]

I realize it’s easy to pattern-match this news to 'hiring in India vs. firing in US' given the current climate, but having worked at Amazon India for 4 years, I can tell you the cuts happen there too.

Amazon has a history of annual restructuring that hits every region. It isn't necessarily a direct relocation strategy so much as their standard operational churn. The 'efficiency' cuts are happening globally, India included.

[locusofself]

Sure, but at some point in the past, "Amazon India" was not a thing. Nor was "Microsoft India" and so forth. Surely you can understand what it feels like to be an American tech worker in a super high cost of living area, looking at reduction in headcount and continual offshoring of jobs as time goes by. I live in Seattle area, work at one of these big companies, I work with people in India almost every day and have been to India three times on business. When parts of my department's work was allocated to a new team in India, of course I was nervous about that.

[kburman]

I get the fear, but look at it from the investor's perspective. The US market is tapped out, Amazon is already everywhere it can be.

Amazon isn't expanding in India out of love for the country or a desire to see it grow. They are doing it because Wall Street demands infinite growth every single year. Amazon India went from zero to a market leader in a decade not because of charity, but because that is where the new money is.

To keep the valuation climbing (which sustains everyone's RSUs), they have to capture these emerging markets. If they don't, the stock stagnates, and the compensation model for US tech workers falls apart.

[geodel]

True. This is Globalism at work. If these companies were not selling goods and services globally then they wouldn't have to deal with setting up offices, staff, pressure from local politicians to hire locals around the world.

Companies hiring more in cheap labor countries is quite obvious for long time. In case of Amazon I feel most of the stuff that was cutting edge 2 decades back is now low value work where cost is the only edge.

[yojat661]

The parent comment is obviously cherry picking news and trying to push an agenda.

Uk investment: https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/news/job-creation-and-investme...

Us investment: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-invest-50-billion-ai

[stuaxo]

The US investment link is broken, and most of the UK jobs are in "fullfillment", some of the least fullfilling jobs - piss bottles all round.

[no_wizard]

The AI investment is largely earmarked for data centers. Low staff but expensive because the hardware is currently very expensive.

It's not equivalent in the least. They aren't expanding headcount by 20K, they're building more expensive AI tailored servers

[dmix]

Amazon also employs 1.5 million people globally, 350k of which are in corporate. These 16k were corporate. Still sucks for everyone involved, I know a corporate sales guy who got laid off Microsoft and it disrupted his life pretty seriously. As Stalin says one's a tragedy, a millions a statistic.

[darth_avocado]

Since the HN reaction to layoffs almost always is about blaming H1B, here’s a few more things the headline misses:

1. Cuts were global 2. Cuts in US also include H1B employees 3. 16000 roles are corporate roles, not just tech related, H1B program is not generally utilized for those roles 4. Expansion in India is not just tech. Amazon is a big retailer in India. Understandably if you’re seeing revenue growth in India, you will grow corporate presence in India. If Walmart becomes a massive retailer in EU, it will hire EU nationals in EU. That’s not shipping jobs to EU.

[belter]

Many Software Engineers gone. At L6 and L7 level.

Details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonemployees/

[ActionHank]

It not pattern matching, it’s literally two things happening at the same time… in a business… that strictly budgets everything…

It’s not a pattern it’s a plan.

[cahgnifop]

[flagged]