American eCommerce giant, Amazon said on Tuesday that the company has not sacked any employees in India and that the employees voluntarily left the company as part of its recent massive global layoff plan. The Indian arm of Amazon was summoned by Labour Ministry on Tuesday to enquire about the company’s new voluntary separation program (VSP).
Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an NGO based in India for IT workers, had earlier sent a letter to Labour Ministry stating that mass lay-offs by Amazon India were unethical and illegal. Harpreet Singh Saluja, president of NITES said that the NGO has received complaints from several Amazon employees that the company is forcing them to leave voluntarily and sent a detailed Voluntary Separation Program (VSP).
Amazon India is one of the largest e-commerce players in the Indian eCommerce market employing a large number of workers. Such mass lay-offs and forced resignations will impact the livelihoods of thousands of people in the country.
Amazon India currently employs more than 100000 workers in India and it has been trying to cut the workforce to reduce costs and expenses. The parent company of Amazon India, Amazon.com Inc had earlier announced that it will be laying off 10000 employees globally. There is no further information available regarding how many Amazon India employees will lose their jobs.
According to internal documents accessed by news agencies, Amazon India last week sent various documents related to “voluntary severance” offers to the employees at its different divisions such as the human resources department and employee services segment. There are also reports that the multinational e-commerce company is planning to lay off a large number of employees working in the ‘Alexa’ department and divisions which work with home gadgets and similar products.
Amazon has been suffering from a severe decline in sales and revenue due to current volatility in the global economic condition. Customers around the world are spending less on online retail stores such as Amazon as inflation and higher prices for essential commodities have triggered a cost of living crisis, especially in European states.
Social networking platform, Twitter Inc had earlier fired 90 percent of employees in an Indian subsidiary as part of implementing severe cost-cutting measures. Reports suggest that entire personnel in the marketing and communication team were fired by the company in India.
