E-commerce giant Amazon is closing all but one of its U.S.-based customer call centers in a bid to cut costs, as the ongoing economic slump continues to impact the tech sector.
Only one call center, likely either the one in Huntingdon, West Virginia, or Houston, Texas, will remain open, according to a source familiar with the situation who spoke to Bloomberg.
Via Bloomberg:
The retailer has been seeking to reduce expenses as revenue sales growth slows amid rising inflation and economic uncertainty. This year, U.S. online sales will increase 9.4% to $1 trillion, the first time growth has slipped into the single digits, according to Insider Intelligence. The cost-cutting comes after Amazon quickly expanded its warehouses and logistics operations when consumer demand jumped during the early stages of the pandemic.
The pandemic also forced companies to embrace remote work for customer service roles and many employees are resisting efforts to return to offices. Offering work-from-home will help Amazon recruit employees in an industry with high turnover. Its cloud computing division sells Amazon Connect software that helps companies create remote customer service networks.
According to the source who spoke to Bloomberg, the facilities that amazon plans to shut down include locations in Kennewick, Washington; Lexington, Kentucky, and Phoenix, Arizona.
The tech giant’s cost-cutting decisions come amid a wider economic slump. Other tech companies have also been affected — like Facebook, which recently announced a hiring freeze. Amazon also had to walk back a promised corporate pay increase recently, which it blamed on a computer glitch.
Like most tech stocks, the value of Amazon shares have plunged over the past year. The company’s shares are now valued at roughly $115 per share, down from highs of nearly $186 per share in mid-2021.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.