Amazon Shuts Down Charity Program as Layoffs Continue

The logo of Amazon at the company's logistics center in Bretigny-sur-Orge, near Paris on Nov. 25, 2022. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

Amazon will discontinue its charity program called AmazonSmiles as the company continues to find ways to cut costs, which have included mass layoffs.

The e-retailer’s charity allows shoppers to donate a percentage of eligible purchases on the site to their chosen charity organization.

In an announcement, Amazon states it plans to wind down AmazonSmiles by Feb. 20.

On its website, the e-commerce giant says it “will continue to pursue and invest in other areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist broad communities impacted by natural disaster.”

Amazon claims that the charity program did not reach the success it had envisioned with the average donation to charities being less than $230. The e-retailer said it has donated close to $500 million to charities since the program’s inception in 2013.

“After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped,” the company said. “With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”

The decision to shut down AmazonSmiles comes as CEO Andy Jassy has conducted a wide review of the company’s expenses due to slowing growth in its retail division after the pandemic.

In addition to shuttering AmazonSmiles, the company is also conducting its largest reduction in employees in its history.

More Layoffs

Amazon has commenced a second round of layoffs with plans by Jassy to reduce the company’s headcount by 18,000 in 2023, according to a statement on its website.

The new round of job cuts comes after Amazon announced it would lay off close to 10,000 people in November which included members of its hardware and services, retail and human resources teams.

Jassy stated the reductions came after a broader review of the company’s performance.

“Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles,” he said. “Between the reductions, we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.”

Those affected by the layoffs working in the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica were notified this week, according to CNBC which obtained memos sent to employees.

Employees in other parts of the world will have to wait until later, in China for example employees whose jobs will be cut will be notified after the Lunar New Year.

Despite the layoffs and cost-cutting measures, Jassy says he is still optimistic about Amazon’s future.

“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; however, I’m also optimistic that we’ll be inventive, resourceful, and scrappy in this time when we’re not hiring expansively and eliminating some roles.”

Other Tech Companies in Trouble

Amazon isn’t the only tech company that has conducted job-cutting or cost-saving measures lately. There have been over 37,000 layoffs in the tech industry this year according to the website Layoffs.fyi which tracks headcount reductions in the tech industry.

Apart from Amazon, Salesforce has laid off close to 8,000 employees this year, Coinbase has reduced its staff by 950 and Microsoft has confirmed it will be eliminating 10,000 roles in 2023.

Many tech companies have also initiated hiring freezes.