Amazon discontinues charity donation program that raised nearly $500 million as layoffs continue

On the heels of Amazon beginning its latest round of layoffs that cut thousands of jobs, the e-retailer announced it plans to shut down its charity donation program.

The online retailer and cloud computing giant donates a percentage of eligible purchases on the site to the shoppers’ chosen charity organization through the program AmazonSmile, launched a decade ago.

Amazon said it has donated at least $449 million to charities since the program launched in 2013.

In a notice to customers posted to its website, Amazon said it plans to "wind down" AmazonSmile by Feb. 20.

“After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped,” the company said. “With so many eligible organizations – more than 1 million globally – our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”

The average donation to charities was less than $230, according to Amazon.

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"To help charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program with this transition, we will be providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program, and they will also be able to accrue additional donations until the program officially closes," the company wrote in the notice.

Once the program closes, Amazon said, charities will still be able to "seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists."

More layoffs began Wednesday

As of October 2022, Amazon had over 1.5 million employees.

Amazon began making layoffs to its devices organization, retail division and human resources divisions in November, cutting about 10,000 employees.

On Jan. 4, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the company planned to lay off more than 18,000 employees "between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today."

Additional layoff notifications began Wednesday.

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Amazon made the staff reductions in its human resources and stores division, as the company is expected to lay off about an added 8,000 employees. Doug Herrington, Amazon's worldwide retail chief, said in a memo the company would begin to notify employees by email Wednesday.

In his Jan. 4 note, Jassy wrote the company will be providing severance packages to affected employees, including separation payments, transitional health insurance benefits and external job placement support.

Microsoft and more tech companies lay off employees

Amazon's news on Wednesday came the same day Microsoft announced it would be reducing its workforce by 10,000 people through the end of the third quarter of the 2023 fiscal year.

They aren't the only tech companies to recently lay off employees; there were at least 154,000 layoffs from more than 1,000 tech companies last year, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that has been tracking tech layoffs since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. 

More than 26,000 jobs have been cut in 2023 so far, as Layoffs.fyi creator Roger Lee previously told USA TODAY he doesn't see layoffs "going away anytime soon."

Contributing: Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY

Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.