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Dive Brief:
Amazon is laying off employees in its books business, affecting fewer than 100 people, the e-commerce giant confirmed by email Friday.
Certain positions were consolidated to streamline operations, but the move doesn’t affect the overall size of the books organization, the company said.
U.S. Q1 print book sales fell 1% year over year, in part due to Easter’s timing. Fiction sales grew, but nonfiction and children’s books fell, according to Circana’s Bookscan report.
Dive Insight:
Amazon started off as a bookseller but the category hasn’t always been a winner for it.
The dominance of Amazon’s Kindle device fuels its e-book sales and its Audible business fuels audiobooks sales, but print still accounts for about 80% of all book revenue, according to the Association of American Publishers.
When it comes to print books, though, Amazon has ceded the physical landscape. In 2022, even as U.S. consumers enthusiastically returned to shopping in physical stores, Amazon announced it would shutter all of its brick-and-mortar bookstores. This isn’t necessarily a reflection of the business as a whole. The number of independent booksellers grew last year and is projected to expand again in 2025, according to the American Booksellers Association. And Barnes & Noble’s comeback continues apace, with another 60 store openings planned for this year.
The layoffs at Amazon’s books business come mid-year, after cutting about 200 roles in its North America retail operations in January. In the past couple of years the company has more aggressively downsized teams related to its retail business, including tech teams at its physical stores. In 2023 the company laid off more than 18,000 people, many of them in retail.
“As part of our ongoing work to make our teams and programs operate more efficiently, and to better align with our business roadmap, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles within the Books organization,” Amazon spokesperson Tim Gillman said Friday. “We don’t make these decisions lightly, and we’re committed to supporting affected employees through their transitions.”