- Amazon has frozen headcount at its growing advertising business, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
- This came days after Amazon projected its slowest four-quarter growth ever.
Big Tech is bunkering down for a harsh winter ahead. The entire sector is getting hammered by layoffs and hiring freezes, and even tech giant Amazon is feeling the chill.
Amazon has frozen headcount at its growing advertising business, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. The company will continue to fill vacancies, but there will be no new positions created, the media outlet reported.
This is just days after Amazon — the world's largest online retailer — posted mixed third-quarter earnings and projected the company's slowest fourth-quarter growth ever.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request from Insider for comment, which was sent outside regular business hours.
Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's Chief Financial Officer, said on a Thursday reporters' call that Amazon would be taking actions to tighten its belt, including pausing hiring in certain businesses and winding down products and services.
An Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg there were still a "significant number of open roles" across the company. "We have many different businesses at various stages of evolution, and we expect to keep adjusting our hiring strategies in each of these businesses at various junctures," they added.
A hiring freeze at Amazon's fast-growing ad business is important, because it underscores the fact that the company is doubling down on profitability.
Although advertising isn't Amazon's largest business, it's one of the e-commerce giant's fastest-growing areas, Insider reported in August. The ad business generated $31 billion in revenue over 2021 and has become the third-largest digital advertising platform by revenue in the US after Google and Facebook parent, Meta, according to Insider Intelligence.
It achieved the status by moving beyond search ads and is now leveraging its giant cloud and ecommerce businesses to boost ad sales, Insider's Lauren Johnson reported in October.
The strategy contributed to the growing of the business through the first three quarters of 2022, even amid a gloomy picture for ad spending. In the third quarter of 2022, Amazon's ad business grew 25% to $9.55 billion in the third quarter of 2022 from a year ago.
Amazon's shares closed 5.5% lower at $96.79 on Tuesday. They are down about 43% this year so far.