Amazon Kicks Off Round of Job Cuts Affecting 18,000 People

It would have been less exciting had he the first round of layoffs had headlines like "Amazon retrenches on its Alexa division" and this round been "Amazon retrenches in its retail efforts". Some parts of Amazon are still actively hiring.

Framing it around headcount is useful for Amazon: the lazy investors will think "Ah, amazon is cutting expense because of the economy. Smart!" and buy rather than seeing "Some of Amazon's efforts are not bearing fruit" and sell.