Amazon announces working from the office for at least 3 days a week from May

Amazon.com would require employees to be in the office at least three days a week starting May 1, the e-commerce giant said Friday.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the workplace, with companies sending employees home to work remotely. Even though lockdowns have eased around the world, a large employee population remains remote or in a hybrid environment.

In a post on Amazon’s blog, Chief Executive Andy Jassy wrote that the decision was made at a meeting earlier this week and that the decision would facilitate learning and collaboration.

“This change will give a boost to the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarters in Puget Sound, Va., Nashville and the dozens of cities around the world where our employees commute to work,” Jassy wrote.

The company added that there would be a few exceptions to the rule – customer support roles and salespeople would have the option to work remotely.

Amazon had said in October 2021 that it would let individual teams decide how many days company employees should work from the office per week.

In January of this year, Amazon announced plans to cut jobs in the United States, Canada and Costa Rica. The measures were taken as part of the layoff of 18,000 employees, the e-commerce giant said in a memo to staff seen by Reuters.

The company has reportedly laid off 2,300 employees in Seattle and Bellevue, according to an update on the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) site. US labor law requires companies planning mass layoffs to notify their employees 60 days before the shutdown.

Amazon was one of many tech companies to announce layoffs and job cuts in recent months.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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