Amazon to cut 9,000 jobs in second round of layoffs, says report
New York, Mar 20: Amazon announced on Monday it will lay off 9,000 corporate and technology workers, eliminating jobs in addition to the 18,000 job cuts undertaken by the company in the last few months.
"As we've just concluded the second phase of our operating plan (OP2) this past week, I'm writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks mostly in AWS, PXT (People, Experience, and Technology), Advertising, and Twitch. This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.
The 9,000 job cuts, which will be completed by mid to late April, are in addition to the massive 18, 000 layoffs that the company undertook since November last year.
Jassy said that "given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount" adding that the "overriding tenet of our annual planning" this year was to be leaner.
Jassy acknowledged people may question why the additional 9,000 job cuts were not announced together with the previous lay-offs.
"The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we've made them so people had the information as soon as possible," Jassy said.
Technology giants Google, Microsoft and Facebook have announced massive job cuts in the last few months, amid global economic uncertainty. Digital consumption soared during the years of the pandemic, prompting companies to diversify portfolios and scale up hiring.
But as consumers cut back on their digital footprint as normalcy returned after the pandemic, companies have been forced to restructure and cut costs.
Last week, Facebook-parent Meta had said it will lay off another 10,000 workers and will not fill another 5,000 positions, announcing the second round of significant job cuts by the tech major in four months.
The latest move came after Meta slashed approximately 13 per cent of its workforce, or 11,000 jobs in November last year, in the single largest round of cuts in the company's history.
In a Facebook post, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said the job cuts will take place "over the next couple of months."
"We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May," he wrote.
In January this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company was slashing 12,000 jobs.
A day before Google's announcement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said his company will lay off 10,000 workers, or less than five per cent of its total workforce, as the technology giant aligns its cost structure with revenue and customer demand.
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Actress sexual assault: Court says Prosecution 'miserably' failed to prove conspiracy against Dileep
Kochi (PTI): The prosecution had "miserably" failed to prove the conspiracy charge against Dileep in the sensational 2017 actress sexual assault case, a local court has observed while citing inconsistencies and lack of sufficient evidence against the Malayalam star.
The full judgement of Ernakulam District and Principal Sessions Court Judge Honey M Varghese was released late on Friday, and has revealed the judge also pointing out at unsustainable arguments put forth by the prosecution.
"The prosecution miserably failed to prove the conspiracy between accused No.1 (Pulsar Suni) and accused No.8 (Dileep) in executing the offence against the victim," the court held.
It examined in detail, the prosecution's allegation that Dileep had hired the prime accused to sexually assault the survivor and record visuals, including close-up footage of a gold ring she was wearing, to establish her identity.
On page 1130 of the judgment, under paragraph 703, the court framed the issue as whether the prosecution's contention that NS Sunil (Pulsar Suni) recorded visuals of the gold ring worn by the victim at the time of the occurrence, so as to clearly disclose her identity, was sustainable.
The prosecution contended Dileep and Suni had planned the recording so that the actress' identity would be unmistakable, with the video of the gold ring intended to convince Dileep that the visuals were genuine.
However, the court noted that this contention was not stated in the first charge sheet and was introduced only in the second one.
As part of this claim, a gold ring was seized after the victim produced it before the police.
The court observed that multiple statements of the victim were recorded from February 18, 2017, following the incident, and that she first raised allegations against Dileep only on June 3, 2017.
Even on that day, nothing was mentioned about filming of the ring as claimed by the prosecution, the court said.
The prosecution failed to explain why the victim did not disclose this fact at the earliest available opportunities.
It further noted that although the victim had viewed the sexual assault visuals twice, she did not mention any specific recording of the gold ring on those occasions, which remained unexplained.
The court also examined the approvers' statements.
One approver told the magistrate that Dileep had instructed Pulsar Suni to record the victim's wedding ring.
The court observed that no such wedding ring was available with her at that time.
During the trial, the approver changed his version, the court said.
The Special Public Prosecutor put a leading question to the approver on whether Dileep had instructed the recording of the ring, after which he deposed that the instruction was to record it to prove the victim's identity.
The court observed that the approver changed his account to corroborate the victim's evidence.
When the same question was put to another approver, he repeated the claim during the trial but admitted he had never stated this fact before the investigating officer.
The court noted that the second approver even went to the extent of claiming Dileep had instructed the execution of the crime as the victim's engagement was over.
This showed that the evidence of the second approver regarding the shooting of the ring was untrue, as her engagement had taken place after the crime.
The court further observed that the visuals themselves clearly revealed the victim's identity and that there was no need to capture images of the ring to establish identity.
In paragraph 887, the court examined the alleged motive behind the crime and noted that in the first charge sheet, the prosecution had claimed that accused persons 1 to 6 had kidnapped the victim with the common intention of capturing nude visuals to extort money by threatening to circulate them and there was no mention about Dileep's role in it.
The court also rejected the prosecution's claim that the accused had been planning the assault on Dileep's instructions since 2013, noting that the allegation was not supported by reliable evidence.
It similarly ruled out the claim that Suni attempted to sexually assault the victim in Goa in January 2017, stating that witness statements showed no such misconduct when he served as the driver of the vehicle used by the actress there.
The court also discussed various controversies that followed Dileep's arrest and the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, ultimately finding that the case had not been proved.
Pronouning its verdict on the sensational case on December 8, the court acquitted Dileep and three others.
Later, the court sentenced six accused, including the prime accused Suni, to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.
The assault on the multilingual actress, after the accused allegedly forced their way into her car and held it under their control for two hours on February 17, 2017, had shocked Kerala.
Pulsar Suni sexually assaulted the actress and video recorded the act with the help of the other convicted persons in the moving car.
