AMAZON.COM is laying off hundreds of employees in its healthcare division, stepping up an ongoing campaign to trim costs.

The job cuts will impact “a few hundred roles” between the One Medical chain of doctors offices Amazon acquired last year and the company’s online pharmacy operation, Neil Lindsay, chief of Amazon Health Services, said in a note to employees on Tuesday (Feb 6).

The layoffs follow rolling reductions in late 2022 and early 2023 that ultimately totalled more than 27,000 employees, as chief executive officer Andy Jassy looked to cut costs after expanding rapidly during the pandemic. He has also axed dozens of projects concocted during the Jeff Bezos era.

Since then, Amazon has continued trimming across its businesses, without announcing mass workforce reductions. Cuts in the last several months fell on the division responsible for its voice-activated Alexa assistant as well as in the music unit, the Prime Video and studios business, as well as Twitch, the livestreaming subsidiary, among other units.

Lindsay told employees the company had “identified areas where we can reposition resources so we can invest in invention and experiences that have a direct impact on our customers”. He added that Amazon’s health businesses were “seeing tremendous growth”.

Business Insider reported the latest round of layoffs earlier.

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Amazon’s cuts add to what’s become nearly daily announcements from technology companies that they are eliminating positions. So far this year, some 32,000 tech workers have lost their jobs, according to Layoffs.fyi, a startup that has been tracking job cuts in the industry since the pandemic. DocuSign on Tuesday announced its own layoffs, which will affect about 6 per cent of its workforce. BLOOMBERG