Amazon Pulls The Plug On Halo, Cloud Service Division

Amazon Inc. pulls the plug on Halo, part of cloud service division and has asked employees to take an exit from the company after it started experiencing slow growth in its most profitable division as per a bloomberg report.

This decision comes as the part of the technology giant's layoff plans for cost cutting. Amazon Web Services employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica whose jobs were being eliminated were notified early Wednesday, the unit's chief said in an email to staff. AWS generates most of the company's profits but is experiencing slowing growth as corporate customers look to trim expenses.

Overall, Amazon has cut nearly 27,000 personnel at corporate level after a hiring spree during the pandemic left the company with too many people. Having wrapped up a round of job cuts earlier this year that totalled about 18,000 workers, earlier in March Amazon announced another 9,000 layoffs, which Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said would land on AWS, human resources, advertising and the Twitch live streaming service. Cuts were rolled out in recent weeks in areas including Twitch and the company's video game group.

The company has stated that it will stop supporting Halo services from July 31st, and will fully refund Halo device purchases made in the preceding 12 months. alo division was launched in 2020 with the introduction of the original Halo band.

Initially, the Halo division introduced the Halo band, which served as a fitness tracker and also provided customers with access to specific health monitoring and analysis services offered by Amazon. Later on, the division released two additional products - Halo View and Halo Rise. The former is a contactless sleep tracker, while the latter is a smart alarm clock.

Like its peers, Apple, Alphabet's Google, and Amazon have invested in health-tracking technology for consumers. On some occasions, Amazon's collection of sensitive information through its fitness wristband, such as body fat percentage, has drawn regulatory scrutiny.

"It is a tough day across our organization" AWS chief Adam Selipsky said in the email reviewed by Bloomberg.

"Given this rapid growth, as well as the overall business and macroeconomic climate, it is critical that we focus on identifying and putting our resources behind our top priorities - those things that matter most to customers and that will move the needle for our business," Selipsky said. "In many cases, this means team members are shifting the projects, initiatives or teams on which they work; however, in other cases, it has resulted in these role eliminations."

Selipsky added that cuts in regions outside North America would roll out following local processes, including consultations with employee groups where mandated by law.

Some AWS-related teams had already been hit by layoffs, including recruiters and members of the "Just Walk Out" physical stores technology group that joined the division in a reorganization last year. But the first rounds of cuts landed heaviest on the company's recruiting and human resources teams, its sprawling retail group and devices teams.

On Wednesday more cuts were announced to Amazon's beleaguered HR group, which has been subject to waves of buyout offers and cuts that began in November.

Beth Galetti, who leads the People Experience and Technology team, as Amazon calls HR, announced the latest set of cuts in an email Wednesday. "These decisions are not taken lightly, and I recognize the impact it will have across both those transitioning out of the company as well as our colleagues who remain," she said.

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the latest layoffs, referring back to Jassy's email in March saying that they would be coming.

Amazon has instituted a hiring freeze for jobs outside its warehouses and delivery operations - with exceptions for certain projects and jobs. It is not clear when the company might begin hiring in mass again.

Amazon Inc workforce strength stood at 1.54 million people worldwide at the end of December. The vast majority of those workers are hourly employees who pack and ship products in warehouses. Before the first round of layoffs began in November, the company said it had roughly 350,000 corporate employees.