Amazon plans to lay off as many as 20,000 employees across the company in the coming months, including distribution center workers, technology staff and corporate executives—about twice as many as previously reported—as the retail and cloud computing giant retrenches after going on a hiring spree during the pandemic.In the wake of the New York Times story, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on November 17, in a public message to employees, confirmed that layoffs were occurring, though he did not specify the planned number of employees to be laid off.Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023," Jassy wrote in the message, noting that the company had already communicated that layoffs would occur in the Devices and Books businesses, and would be extending a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in the People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organization.In response to a query, an Amazon spokesperson did not comment on the reports from sources that the company is looking to cut 20,000 employees, instead pointing to a passage in Jassy's Novermber 17 message that read, "We haven’t concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted (we know that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organizations), but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down.”Amazon needs to cut costs, says CEO JassyJassy elaborated on the layoffs this Wednesday during an interview at The New York Times DealBook conference, saying, “We just felt like we needed to streamline our costs.”Amazon's retail business grew quickly during the early days of the pandemic, which “forced us to make decisions at that time to spend a lot more money and to go much faster in building infrastructure than we ever imagined we would,” Jassy said at the conference.During its third-quarter earnings call with analysts, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky attributed the decline in growth to macroeconomic conditions that were forcing Amazon customers to cut down on expenditures to save money in the short run."