[Amazon to cut hundreds of employees] Zac Fyffe  Las Vegas/NV - July 2017:  Amazon.com Fulfillment Center. Photo: Jonathan Weiss via Bigstock It has been reported that e-commerce giant, Amazon, is set to lay-off hundreds of workers at its headquarters and global operations following years of notable growth. Reports coming out of Seattle say that the reasoning behind the employee cuts is an attempt to streamline the consumer retail business of the firm. However, the firm has said that they are attempting to find alternative roles for the staff who are due to be affected. In a statement from Amazon, it said that it expects “small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others.” This decision is unsurprising given the huge growth that the business is experiencing through global expansion and as they focus on other, more technologically driven areas, more jobs are set to be created. The company regularly has thousands of job availabilities on its website, due to its global ranking, and as a result of its rapid expansion over the last few years. The e-commerce firm has managed to acquire a number of other firms in recent times such as grocer Whole Foods whilst maintaining rapid growth in sales. In 2017 alone, Amazon is said to have earned a profit of $3.9b from sales exceeding $226b. The dominant firm’s growth is highlighted in its fourth quarter performance in 2017, with sales up 38% to $77b, a new company record. The profits from this period were more than double that of the last three months of 2016 reaching $2.4b compared to $953m. The enormous growth in profits cab partly be attributed to a $789m tax benefit from the government in relation to a new US tax law. Employee growth has also risen with the firm reporting a 65% increase in full-time and part-time workers globally at the end of December, taking the company’s total to over 560,000 employees. The majority of these new workers are said to be working under the Amazon Web Services branch that has seen the creation of many new roles. Amazon Web Services is Amazon’s cloud service branch that has shown to be highly profitable. The release and continued development of Alexa has also created further jobs within the company as they look to improve its functions and introduce other devices. Amazon has previously had to lay-off employees following consolidations as they continue to grow. Last year, Amazon closed a number of sites, including Diapers.com, having acquired them in 2010. This is reported to have led to a cull of over 260 employees in New Jersey.