Comment on Amazon’s CEO defends return-to-office policy, after some employees ask for a rethink

The CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, has reportedly defended the company’s return-to-office move and denied claims the plan is part of a ‘backdoor layoff.’ This comes after an announcement was made back in September where Jassy said in a published message: “…we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID.” Since then, some of Amazon’s employees have requested a rethinking of the approach that is intended to be brought in from January of next year. The plan would require employees to be in every day which is an increase from the three days of work they are expected to be in currently. Several months on and a transcript from an all-hands staff meeting has reportedly been seen by Reuters and CNBC, with the CEO speaking candidly about the plan. “A number of people I’ve seen theorized that the reason we were doing this is, it’s a backdoor layoff, or we made some sort of deal with city or cities,” said Jassy, according to a transcript of the meeting reviewed by the two publishers. “I can tell you both of those are not true.