Amazon.com Inc will reportedly temporarily stop hiring for corporate roles in its retail business amid economic downturn concerns.
It told recruiters to close all job vacancy postings and cancel some activities including calls to potential candidates, according to The New York Times, which cited internal communications.
Although its spokesman Brad Glasser insisted Amazon still has a significant number of open roles in other segments of the company.
“We have many different businesses at various stages of evolution and we expect to keep adjusting our hiring strategies in each of these businesses at various junctures,” Glasser commented.
The retail giant experienced rapid growth during the pandemic as consumers turned to online spending.
By early this year, however, spending on e-commerce decelerated and in the first quarter, Amazon had its slowest rate of revenue growth since the dot-com bust more than two decades ago.
Chief executive Andy Jassy reassured investors that his focus is on restoring a “healthy level of profitability” following less retail sales and soaring costs in 2022.
In Q2 of this year, Amazon slashed its workforce by roughly 99,000 people to 1.52mln employees after its Covid-related hiring spree.
It is the latest big-tech company to reassess its hiring plans in times of economic uncertainty, with Google, Apple and Meta having already announced hiring will be slowed or momentarily paused.