Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says economy will test 'long term resolve' of companies

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday that the world's second-largest company by revenue has been trying to "streamline" costs as it navigates the uncertain economic environment. 

While speaking at The New York Times DealBook summit, Jassy said the economy over the next few years is "going to test the long term resolve of a lot of companies." Many will decide to "stop doing anything that's not their core revenue generating businesses," he added. 

Jassy explained that the online retailer is in the process of streamlining costs in "a bunch of different areas" while investing in things that it believes will impact the company in the long term.

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This marks his first public comments since The New York Times first reported earlier this month that Amazon was planning to lay off 10,000 corporate and technology workers.  

People familiar with the matter told the Times that the cuts would affect the company's devices organization, retail division and human resources. 

Jassy elaborated Wednesday that while there are a lot of things Amazon is doing in the devices organization that he is "optimistic" about, there are other tings that they don't see as "really big needle movers." 

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
AMZN	AMAZON.COM INC.	181.28	-2.04	-1.11%

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"In those cases, we either wound those down or slowed those down to streamline a little bit as part of that cost exercise," he added. 

Shortly before the Times reported the pending layoffs, people Jassy began a cost-cutting review of the company, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.

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Amazon had already warned employees in underperforming units to prepare to look for another job as the company makes cutbacks amid the uncertain economic environment, sources told the Journal.

Before that, the company even initiated a hiring freeze saying it wanted to "balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy."