At the beginning of January, Amazon CEO Andy Jessy announced the largest wave of layoffs in the company’s history. The reason for this is high inflation and rising interest rates. Now employees of the Amazon Pharmacy department have been informed of their dismissal.
• In 2020, Amazon Pharmacy was available in the US for the first time
• Amazon has been planning the largest for a long time downsizing the company history
• Around 80 jobs have already been cut at Amazon Pharmacy
Amazon invests in the healthcare sector
According to CNBC, the US corporation has been trying to make a name for itself in the healthcare sector for years. In 2020, Amazon launched its first online pharmacy. According to the news portal, preparations for this were already made in 2018 with the acquisition of PillPack. According to the Deutsche Apotheker Zeitung, PillPack was a mail-order pharmacy specializing in “patient-specific blister packs”.
In the years that followed, Amazon pushed ahead with further projects in the healthcare sector, such as Amazon Care. In the future, communication between doctors and patients will take place via text messages and video calls, as Business Insider reported in early 2022 before the wave of layoffs. Prescriptions could also be sent by post with Amazon Care and medical assistants could be ordered home. According to the news portal, Amazon boss Andy Jassy was enthusiastic about this project in early 2022. The plan was to further expand the team for the healthcare sector in order to be able to go even deeper into the healthcare sector in the future.
Largest job cuts in the company’s history
It is hardly surprising that Amazon has been cutting jobs since the end of last year at the latest, since around 27,000 employees have been laid off since then, according to Semafor. CEO Andy Jassy, who is pursuing the goal of aggressive cost reduction, is primarily responsible for this. In terms of this, he has his sights set primarily on less successful areas of the company. This also includes other areas of the health sector, such as the Halo fitness band.
Amazon Pharmacy
According to Amazon spokesman Brad Glasser, a “small number” of Amazon Pharmacy employees were warned in mid-July that they would soon be laid off. According to information from the news portal Semafor, however, 80 jobs have already been cut. The Economic Times reports that pharmacy technicians and team leaders are particularly affected. Registered pharmacists, on the other hand, are largely unaffected. In his statement, Brad Glasser speaks of process optimization and the best possible customer experience as justification for the job cuts.
J. Vogel / Editor finanzen.net
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