Amazon to Layoff 18,000 Employees This Week | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Brittany Raymer.

    Amazon will begin laying-off over 18,000 employees this week, the largest in the company's history. This is the latest instance of a major company downsizing its working staff, and a sign that the economic woes of 2022 are continuing into 2023.

    Across the country, Amazon employees are waiting on pins and needles to see if their name will be among the first to get the axe on Wednesday. It's one of the largest mass layoffs since the Great Recession in 2008, the efforts to downsize and cut costs should have business leaders worried.

    In a blog post sent on Jan. 4, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees, "Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so. These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure."

    At this point, it's unlikely that these layoffs will affect North Carolina, where Amazon already has a warehouse in Raleigh and is currently building one in Fayetteville, which will bring approximately 500 jobs to the area.

    Things are also not looking so good at financial giant Goldman Sachs either. The company posted a bigger than expected drop in quarterly profits, which drug down the stock market. However, it's competitor Morgan Stanley did post record revenue from its wealth management business, though its profits were down overall.

    As a result, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 400 points.

    This hasn't stopped some from having a rather optimistic outlook on the future of the markets at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. Most are banking, no pun intended, on China's growth rebounding after a downward trend in 2022.

    Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison also believes that 2023 might be a better year than expected for the United States.

    "We don't see anything that we believe is going to be a big, massive recession or economic downturn," Ellison said.

    In fact, they're already seeing some heading to the home improvement store to begin projects for the spring, as demand remains "incredibly strong."

    That line of thinking may be bolstered by the Consumer Price Index falling by 0.1% in December.

    This is good news, after the nation suffered from never-ending inflation and a seemingly unstable market.

    But that's not the whole picture either. While companies may be in a better position that initially expected, most are still holding off on any capital spending, i.e., investments in property, equipment or technology.

    The layoffs beginning at Amazon are not only a sign that companies have become overly bloated, but that most are cost-cutting as well.