Amazon Reportedly Pauses Corporate Retail Hiring for Rest of 2022

Amazon is hitting pause on corporate hiring for its retail business for the rest of 2022, according to an internal announcement The New York Times reported on Tuesday (Oct. 4).

The eCommerce giant is just one among numerous companies that have pulled back in the face of economic uncertainties.

The announcement sent to recruiters said Amazon would not be making any more global corporate or technology hires for its stores business, which includes physical and online retail, and logistics positions. The Times said there were over 10,000 openings posted in that division, which makes up most of Amazon’s sales, as of Monday evening (Oct. 3).

The freeze won’t cover the cloud computing division, and some roles like student hiring and field positions will continue.

“Amazon continues to have a significant number of open roles available across the company,” Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesman, said in a statement, adding that some parts of the business were “more mature” and the company would continue adjusting its hiring as needed.

This comes as data from the Labor Department released Tuesday (Oct. 4) shows that while the job market is still strong in some ways, employers were beginning to slow down on the number of roles they were trying to fill.

Federal Reserve officials have been hoping rising interest rates will lower inflation by cutting down on hiring and thus wage pressure, without the need of widespread layoffs.

At the same time, Amazon was among the multiple companies that agreed to hire 22,275 refugees to fill a number of U.S. jobs, along with Pepsi and Pfizer, according to the Tent Partnership for Refugees in late September, PYMNTS wrote.

Read more: Amazon, Pepsi, Others Agree to Hire 20K Refugees

The Tent Partnership of Refugees is a network of 260 major companies that agreed to hire refugees for the next three years who have been fleeing various global crises like those in Ukraine and Afghanistan.

“These companies will benefit from welcoming these hard-working, loyal, and resilient individuals — but my hope is that this is only the beginning,” Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani and founder of Tent, said. “As refugee crises start to fade from the headlines, companies must recognize that hiring refugees is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do.”