Amazon may have just confirmed that it would be laying off employees, but it seems to still have room for a Steve Aoki concert. On Wednesday evening, the superstar DJ performed a live concert for what appeared to be a group of Amazon warehouse employees, and the whole thing was streamed on the AmazonVestLife Twitch channel.
We learned this was happening at all thanks to the New York Times’ Karen Weise, who tweeted about the performance shortly before it wrapped up. But it seems the concert wasn’t exactly a secret, as the “amazonvestlife” Instagram (which, like the Twitch channel, describes itself as the “official account for Amazon associates”) posted a story featuring Aoki to promote the show earlier on Wednesday. The DJ gave a shoutout to “Amazonians” and said the show would be streaming on Twitch.
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24204359/Screenshot_2022_11_16_at_4.04.20_PM.png)
If this “hold a concert right after laying people off” thing rings familiar to you, you’re not alone; WeWork reportedly hosted an in-office concert featuring Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC a few weeks after CEO Adam Neumann fired 7 percent of the staff.
Amazon didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The cuts announced Wednesday by Amazon SVP Dave Limp affected the company’s devices and services organization, and spokesperson Kristy Schmidt characterized the layoffs to me earlier as a very small percentage of the team. But that division isn’t the only one affected, as Vox reported that some employees in the company’s HR division have received a buyout offer. The New York Times reported Monday that Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 corporate and technology employees in total.
wazup.