🚀 Amazon cuts 14,000 jobs

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Market Overview
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Year To Date Performances:

1. Amazon announced it will lay off about 14,000 corporate employees as part of a broader effort to streamline operations and accelerate investment in generative artificial intelligence, marking what could become the largest corporate job cuts in the company’s history. The layoffs, affecting roughly 4% of Amazon’s corporate and tech workforce, are part of CEO Andy Jassy’s campaign to make the company “leaner and less bureaucratic” while redirecting resources toward AI and cloud infrastructure, where it plans to spend an estimated $118 billion this year. Amazon, which has already cut 27,000 jobs between 2022 and 2023, said additional layoffs may continue even as it hires in key growth areas. The move follows similar cost-cutting efforts by Meta, Microsoft, and Google, as major tech firms restructure for an AI-driven future.

2. UPS shares jumped nearly 8% Tuesday after the delivery giant beat Wall Street’s third-quarter expectations and revealed deeper job cuts as part of its sweeping turnaround plan. The company reported adjusted earnings of $1.74 per share on $21.4 billion in revenue, both topping forecasts, while announcing it has eliminated 48,000 jobs this year—far more than initially planned—as it streamlines operations and reduces dependence on Amazon, whose shipping volume with UPS fell 21%. The restructuring has already delivered $2.2 billion in savings, with $3.5 billion expected by year-end, and CEO Carol Tomé said the company is “executing the most significant strategic shift” in its history. Despite a challenging trade environment, UPS expects strong holiday performance, projecting fourth-quarter revenue of $24 billion and margins of up to 11.5%.

3. Chegg announced it will lay off 45% of its workforce, about 388 employees, as the education company struggles with what it called the “new realities” of artificial intelligence and collapsing traffic from Google search. Once valued at nearly $15 billion, Chegg has seen its stock lose 99% of its value as students increasingly turn to generative AI tools like ChatGPT for homework help. The company, which already cut 22% of staff earlier this year, said it will restructure its academic learning products around AI while ending its strategic review process and remaining independent. Founder Dan Rosensweig will return as CEO, taking over from Nathan Schultz amid what may be the company’s final attempt to reinvent itself in an AI-dominated landscape.

   Headlines

   1. Apple became a $4T market cap company for the first time yesterday.

   2. OpenAI has completed its restructuring, leaving Microsoft as its major shareholder, with a 27% stake.