’15-minute phone call’: Indian Amazon employee laid off in US

As large corporations across the world continue to lay off employees, LinkedIn is filled with posts from people looking for new employment. Amazon is one of the major technology corporations that has laid off thousands of employees in recent months.

A data scientist who worked for Amazon in the United States for slightly more than three years is among the Indians who have been laid go by the e-commerce giant. He commented on LinkedIn about losing his job last month and how, weirdly, he had predicted a setback in life.

He was promoted to the role of a Senior Economist just three months before being laid off. “…the day my promotion to Senior was approved, I expressed to my wife that things had been going exceedingly well recently. I joked that things generally turn for the worse at such moments,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

“Funnily enough, exactly three months from that day, I was informed that my role at Amazon was terminated.”

He said the layoff call from his employer last all of 15 minutes. “Three years of obsessing over ownership, earning trust of big thinkers, and removing bias from actions, culminated into a 15-minute phone call that dived deep into frugality,” he said.

The data scientist, who is on an H-1B visa, lives in San Jose with his wife and a “four-month-old puppy who wouldn’t stop biting me”.

“This tunnel is dark and winding, but with your support, I am confident that there is light at the end,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

H-1B visa holders have only 60 days after their employment is terminated to find a new work, have another employer file an H-1B petition on their behalf, or depart the United States.

Amazon announced its second round of layoffs in March, cutting 9,000 positions. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated in a note to staff on March 20 that it was a “difficult decision” made for the company’s long-term interest. These layoffs are in addition to the 18,000 positions that were cut just a few months ago.

The e-commerce giant is in the process of laying off at least 500 employees across verticals in India as part of the second round of mass job cuts. The layoffs are affecting various departments, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), human resources and support functions, multiple sources have confirmed.

Tens of thousands of people across the world have lost their jobs in the past six months as global technology giants are on a layoff spree globally. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter and Goldman Sachs are among companies that have sacked employees recently or frozen hiring in the face of sluggish consumer spending, higher interest rates and surging inflation worldwide.