By Jeffrey Dastin and Uday Sampath Kumar
(Reuters)—Amazon.com Inc's layoffs will now increase to more than 18,000 roles as part of a workforce reduction it previously disclosed, Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a public staff note on Wednesday.
The layoff decisions, which Amazon will communicate starting Jan. 18, will largely impact the company's e-commerce and human resources organizations, he said.
The cuts amount to 6% of Amazon‘s roughly 300,000-person corporate workforce and represent a swift turn for a retailer that recently doubled its base pay ceiling to compete more aggressively for talent.
Amazon has more than 1.5 million workers including warehouse staff, making it America's second-largest private employer after Walmart Inc.
Its stock was up 1.8% at $86.71 in premarket trading on Thursday.
A spokesperson for London-based trade union GMB said it was aware of the job cuts, but that its members will not be affected by the plans.
Members belonging to the union who work at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry, central England, are planning to stage a walkout on Jan. 25 over a pay row with the e-commerce giant.
Laurent Degoussee of the SUD union in France also said the plans would not affect the company's Amazon Logistique France unit.
Douglas Harper, a spokesperson for Spain's largest trade union CCOO, criticized what he said was a total lack of information from the company.
"We don't know how this will affect us in Spain," Harper told Reuters. "We can...
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