Amazon and Salesforce both launched massive rounds of layoffs Wednesday, starting the new year with massive cost cutting initiatives.

Amazon announced it will be laying off 18,000 employees, about 5% of its corporate workforce, the largest mass layoffs at a major tech company so far. As the tech sector begins to feel the weight of a slower economy, rumors have begun to circulate that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos may return, after share prices fell by more than half last year. Michael Batnick at Ritholtz Wealth Management, postulated Bezos could return just as Bob Iger returned to Disney weeks ago.

Amazon will focus the cuts primarily on the company’s device business, including Alexa, as well as recruiting and retail operations. The cuts have already been ongoing for weeks.

In discussing the cuts in a blog post, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said, “Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so.”

Amazon added hundreds of thousands of employees during the pandemic, as customers switched to online ordering of everything from hand sanitizer and masks, to groceries, and entertainment.

As the pandemic waned, so did demand, and Amazon initiated a massive cost-cutting review, looking to cut costs for units which had become unprofitable.

Salesforce announced it would be laying off 10% of its workforce, a cut of about 8,000 employees, due to having over-hired during the pandemic. Co-CEO Marc Benioff, said in a statement he took ‘full responsibility’ for the decision. The software provider said “the environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions.”

Salesforce had hired aggressively during the pandemic, as companies purchased software products to facilitate employees working remotely. Benioff noted most of the layoffs will come over the coming weeks. The company’s stock slid 46% through 2022.

Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, Vimeo and Lyft have all also cut hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent weeks, as the tech sector struggles to maintain profitability as the economic outlook darkens. According to the Wall Street Journal, the tech sector shed over 150,000 jobs in 2022.