Amazon announces hiring freeze: Read senior vice president’s memo to employees

Amazon is pausing hiring for new positions in its corporate workforce for the next few months in response to the “uncertain” economy. The company has announced a corporate hiring freeze. The e-commerce giant’s senior vice president of People Experience and Technology, Beth Galetti, confirmed the move in an employee memo that has also been published on Amazon’s own blog. In the letter, Galetti says that the company had already begun pausing or slowing hiring in various corporate departments in “recent weeks.” She also lists out potential exceptions to this hiring freeze. These include replacements. As a glimmer of hope for 2023, she adds that the company plans to add “a meaningful number of people” next year. Here’s the memo as it appeared on Amazon’s website.

With the economy in an uncertain place and in light of how many people we have hired in the last few years, Andy and S-team decided this week to pause on new incremental hires in our corporate workforce. We had already done so in a few of our businesses in recent weeks and have added our other businesses to this approach. We anticipate keeping this pause in place for the next few months, and will continue to monitor what we’re seeing in the economy and the business to adjust as we think makes sense.