Amazon management failing to reduce Luxembourg job cuts, say staff reps

The staff delegation representing employees of Amazon in Luxembourg has accused the company’s management of failing to do enough to reduce the number of layoffs, at the end of the first week of a formal consultation process on redundancies.

The process between management and the staff delegation in Luxembourg began on Monday, after Amazon announced in October it would cut around 14,000 jobs worldwide in its corporate workforce, in a major restructuring.

The company itself has not confirmed how many people it plans to let go in the Grand Duchy, although Luxembourg’s two largest trade unions have said that Amazon plans to lay off 470 employees, equivalent to more than 10% of its workforce in the country.

On Friday, employee representatives in Luxembourg accused the retail giant’s management of failing to make sufficient efforts to prevent job cuts.

“Despite multiple attempts to engage constructively with leadership, Amazon’s efforts to reduce the number of impacted roles are lacking,” the staff delegation said in a statement sent to the Luxembourg Times on Friday evening.

There is also no “urgent need” for layoffs based on Amazon’s strong financial results, the staff delegation claimed, referring to the company posting a $59.2 billion (€50.72 billion) profit from its global operations last year as well as its “recent record-high stock performance and exceptional Q3 financial results.”

“While the company plans to restructure to support long term financial success, the publicly available financial reporting does not point to an urgent need to restructure,” the statement said.

“While we remain committed to the ongoing dialogue, the current trajectory does not align with Amazon’s stated principles of employee-first culture, commitment to its people and its goal to be [the] Earth’s best employer,” the staff delegation statement concluded.

Amazon declined to comment on the staff delegation’s remarks, but said last week that it had held “constructive meetings with governmental authorities and shared information on our proposed organisational changes in Luxembourg” ahead of the formal consultation process with staff representatives.

It described the discussions with both governmental authorities and employee representatives as reinforcing their “commitment to constructive dialogue that prioritises [their] employees and supports [their] teams through this transition”.