Amazon to lay off nearly 1,000 workers at its Barcelona offices

Amazon has informed workers' unions that it plans to lay off 978 employees from its corporate offices in Barcelona, during a meeting held on Monday.

The world’s largest online retailer had previously announced the elimination of 1,200 jobs across its Madrid and Barcelona offices, and it is now confirmed that 80% of these cuts will take place in the Catalan capital.

The affected employees do not work in logistics centers, but as call center operators and IT staff at Amazon's BCN10 and BCN15 offices in Barcelona's Poblenou district.

Unions report that there are approximately 2,200 call center operators and 650 IT personnel in these offices, meaning the layoffs will impact roughly 30% of the workforce at these two locations.

Call center operators primarily communicate with providers, while IT staff handle computing, translation, fiscal, and data management tasks.

While Amazon attributes the layoffs to "technical, organizational, and productive" reasons, CCOO, the main union, stated it will fight to reduce the number of job cuts and seek to reassign workers to other departments.

The company and the unions are scheduled to meet again on November 20, with a negotiation period running until December 17 to reach a final agreement.

The layoffs are part of Amazon's global plan to cut 14,000 jobs from its 350,000-strong corporate workforce.

In Spain, Amazon employs around 28,000 people, including both corporate and warehouse staff.