Amazon cut stock awards after firing thousands of employees

The current economic conditions have had a massive impact on the technology sector. The job market is quite unstable, with companies recently laying off thousands of employees. Many tech giants are on a cost-cutting spree and doing everything they can to survive in the current scenario. Amazon is also considering reducing the stock awards of its employees to deal with difficult economic conditions.

Amazon cuts stock awards

According to a Reuters report, Amazon will reduce its employee stock awards as part of its compensation plan.

"We made the decision to reduce RSU (restricted stock unit) awards in the latest prospective year by a small amount (other years are not affected)," an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement, according to the statement—Reuters report. However, the spokesperson did not specify which period of the final prospective year is being referred to.

Amazon's efforts to boost business

To boost business, Amazon has tried several things, including calling people back to work from offices and selling some vacant office space.

In February of this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy asked employees to return to work from the offices to boost business. In an official blog post, the CEO highlighted the benefits of working from the office, writing that employees should spend "at least three days a week in their respective offices." He also mentioned that he is "optimistic that this change will provide a boost to the thousands of businesses located around their urban headquarters in Puget Sound, Virginia, Nashville and the dozens of cities around the world where their employees commute to the office.'

"Because the pandemic lasted as long as it did, we were able to observe various models—some teams working exclusively from home, some in the office full-time together, and many flavours of hybrid—over a meaningful period of time. S-team listened to employees, watched how our teams performed, talked to leaders at other companies, and got together on several occasions to discuss if and how we should adjust our approach. The guiding principle in these conversations was to prioritize what would best enable us to make customers' lives better and easier every day, and relentlessly invent to do so. Our respective views of what we thought was optimal evolved as the pandemic wore on and then eased," the blog post read.

In early January, the company made headlines for selling vacant office space in California to cut costs. An Amazon spokesman, Steve Kelly, said at the time, "We're always evaluating our network to make sure it meets our business needs. As part of this effort, we have decided to explore selling the Metro Corporate Center site. We are happy to be a part of the local community and will continue to deliver for customers from our two delivery stations in Milpitas."