Amazon was one of the first companies to say it had overhired during the pandemic. Rising interest rates hit the tech industry particularly hard by hurting the ability of start-ups, in particular, to gain easy access to cash. Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all slashed tens of thousands of jobs in an effort to keep the balance sheet stable.

Producer Andrew “Chef” Lanier argued that the Amazon employees were right in protesting the company’s actions because some of them had been brought on under the assumption that they would be able to continue working remotely.