The announcement heralded a dramatic shift for a company known for its job creation and added shape to the latest layoffs in the technology sector, which in recent weeks have included similar announcements by Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Lyft and Stripe.During the pandemic, Amazon went on a massive hiring spree numbering in the six figures to keep up with demand of customers who found themselves spending a lot more time at home.But Amazon is not immune to the forces that have compelled other technology companies including Twitter and Facebook-owner Meta to trim staff in recent weeksThe layoff news "isn't a surprise given the recent pressure on operating margins in the retail and cloud units," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Abigail Gilmartin said.Alexa unit takes a hitThe retailer once aimed to make Alexa, its voice assistant that powers the devices, ubiquitous and present to place any shopping order, even though it was unclear how widely users have embraced it for more complex tasks than checking the news or weather.While Amazon toiled to encode intelligent answers to any question Alexa might expect from users, Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Microsoft Corp.-backed OpenAI have had breakthroughs in chatbots that could respond like a human without any hand-holding."