Amazon has begun laying off some 10,000 employees, but the pain at the tech and e-commerce giant isn’t spread evenly. The company’s best performing and least recognized business is cutting few, if any, jobs. Amazon Web Services, which sells cloud computing services to millions of organizations and individuals worldwide, delivered 74% of Amazon’s operating profit in 2021 and will likely beat that mark in 2022. Despite the massive wave of layoffs in the company’s devices, human resources, and retail divisions, a senior AWS executive told Bloomberg recently, “I anticipate that we actually will add some headcount next year.”
Total revenue last year was $62.2 billion, and AWS has barreled ahead even in this year’s slow economy, with revenue growing 32% (a $14.3 billion increase) in the first three quarters. Though the division's growth didn't quite meet analysts' expectations in the third quarter, its projected revenue for 2022 is around $80 billion.
