Giant retailer Amazon announced on Wednesday it was cutting 18,000 jobs, as part of a previously announced layoff wave.

The company's Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a public staff note that annual planning "has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we've hired rapidly over the last several years."

The 18,000 layoffs include both the recent ones and the ones previously announced in November. They will mostly impact the company's e-commerce services such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, as well as the human resources organizations.

Amazon has over 1.5 million employees, making it the second largest private employer in the US, after Walmart.

Biggest cuts in company history

The cuts, rolling since November last year, are considered the biggest in the company since it launched in 1994.

As many strong economies flirted with recession and battled unusually high inflation in 2022, several tech companies struggled to sustain their businesses.

That contrasts a surge in revenues they achieved during the pandemic.

The social media giant Meta, which runs Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, announced in November last year that it was laying off 13% of its workforce.

However, the Reuters news agency suggested that Amazon's job cuts surpassed that of other tech giants, Meta included.

Analysts see the cuts as the end of a so-called tech boom which has reigned over the last decade.