Reports out of Seattle say that Amazon has significantly cut the number of open positions in the city, and some employees are even talking about a hiring freeze.
Both the Seattle Times and CNBC reported on the story, speaking to employees about hiring freezes or postponements in their groups, the first sign of a slowdown in Amazon’s rapid expansion.
In addition, two current Amazon employees revealed that they heard no new positions will be added in the Seattle area until early next year.
As of last week, Amazon had 3,503 open positions in Seattle – a fraction of the over 9,000 job openings it had in June and the lowest since 2014. That would also make August to November the slowest four-month hiring period for the King County company.
This news comes as Amazon is seeking the location of its second headquarters. The company previously said that it will invest more than $5 billion in “construction and operation of Amazon HQ2,” and that the second Amazon headquarters will be home to as many as 50,000 high-paying Amazon jobs. Amazon has received 238 bids from 54 different regions across North America for the second headquarters.
With these reports, Amazon denied that there is any connection between any fluctuations in current open roles and planning for the second headquarters. Amazon told the Seattle Times that there’s no company-wide mandate for a hiring freeze, while a company representative told CNBC that the company normally sees seasonal fluctuations in job openings and that it will continue to hire across the company.
“Amazon employs over 500,000 people worldwide, and we’re continuing to hire for thousands of open jobs across the company. We are constantly evaluating hiring needs to ensure we’re dedicating resources efficiently and effectively, so it’s common for there to be fluctuations in head count as we grow at different rates across businesses,” Amazon said in a statement.
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