亚马逊西雅图总部罕见裁员，数百人被辞

Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs at its Seattle headquarters in a rare set of layoffs for the online retailing giant, according to a media report.

据媒体报道，美国在线零售巨头亚马逊公司近日罕见地在其西雅图总部裁员数百人。

The company will also cut hundreds more jobs in other parts of Amazon’s operations, the Seattle Times reported on Monday, citing a person familiar with the eliminations.

《西雅图时报》本周一报道，据了解此次裁员内情的人称，亚马逊还将继续从其他业务部门裁员数百人。

An Amazon spokesman told Fortune that “as part of our annual planning process, we are making head count adjustments across the company—small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others.”

亚马逊公司的一位发言人对《财富》表示，“作为年度规划程序的一部分，我们正在全公司范围内对员工进行调整，其中对几个地方进行了小幅缩减，但在很多其他地方却在积极招聘。”

According to the Times, the Amazon layoffs are the result of the quick growth of late that saw it end up with too much staff in some units. The paper also said managers are under pressure to squeeze out lower-caliber employees and show more spending discipline. “Amazon has a problem right now with overpopulation,” one unnamed engineer told the Times.

据《西雅图时报》称，随着公司近期的快速增长，亚马逊的某些部门出现了“人口过剩”的问题。各部门经理都面临着挤压能力较低的员工的压力，同时公司对开支也管得更紧了。一位不愿透露姓名的工程师对《西雅图时报》表示：“亚马逊现在确实存在‘人口过剩’的问题。”

The layoffs are mostly concentrated in Amazon’s consumer retail businesses, the Timesreported. The move echoes recent layoffs at Amazon’s e-commerce arch-rival Walmart. Walmart is in the process of cutting up to 500 or so jobs at its Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters as it looks to streamline its operations and be as nimble as it can to compete with Amazon.

《西雅图时报》称，此次裁员主要集中在亚马逊的消费零售业务。无独有偶，亚马逊在电商领域的劲敌沃尔玛最近也在裁员。据称沃尔玛将在其本顿维尔总部裁掉500个职位左右，以期在业务“瘦身”后能更好地与亚马逊进行竞争。

For both companies, the cuts are modest in relation to staffing levels. Amazon employs about 566,000 people worldwide, according to its recently published annual report for 2017. That was up from 341,400 a year earlier. (In addition to its organic growth, Amazon has made some acquisitions in the last year, notably that of Whole Foods Market last summer.) Such has Amazon’s growth been that it is currently in the process of prospecting locations for a second headquarters.

与各自的员工基数相比，亚马逊和沃尔玛此次的裁员幅度都不算大。从亚马逊近日发布的2017年年报看，亚马逊在全球共有约56.6万名员工，较一年前的34.14万，增幅不可谓不惊人。（除了自身的增长，亚马逊去年还进行了几笔收购，尤其是去年夏天收购了全食公司。）为了给这些新员工安排工作，据称亚马逊正在物色地皮，建设公司的第二总部。

Earlier this month, Amazon reported revenues of $60.5 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, up from $43.74 billion a year earlier, fueled by strong sales during the holiday season. It also reported a profit of $1.9 billion on the strength of the popularity of its voice-activated Echo devices and jump in its Prime memberships.

本月月初，亚马逊公布了2017年10至12月的营收。在假日季的强势刺激下，亚马逊当季营收达到605亿美元，较上年的437.4亿美元有较大增长。另外由于其声控设备Echo大受追捧，加之其Prime服务的会员人数出现跃升，亚马逊当季利润也达到了19亿美元。