In a bid to streamline operations and focus on growing areas of its business, Amazon.com has reportedly laid off approximately 180 employees in its games division. This comes as the second round of cuts in less than a week, following an initial restructuring earlier this year. The news of the job cuts was disclosed in an email dated November 13, seen by Reuters.

According to the email from Christoph Hartmann, Vice President of Amazon Games, the company realized the need to allocate resources more efficiently and concentrate on areas that show the highest potential for business growth. This latest move is part of a broader restructuring strategy implemented by Amazon.

Affected employees were informed on Monday morning about the elimination of their roles in the games division. This marks the second reduction in workforce within the division this year. Last week, Amazon also began cutting jobs in its streaming music and podcast division, as well as a small number of positions in its human resources unit known as People Experience and Technology (PXT), sources familiar with the matter revealed.

The games division offers downloadable versions of various video games on a monthly rotation and provides Twitch channels and other services. However, Amazon is now shifting its focus to Prime Gaming, a service that offers free games as a benefit within its annual Prime membership, alongside free shipping and streaming video.

Christoph Hartmann emphasized in the email that the decision to prioritize free monthly games was driven by customer feedback. He stated, "We've listened to our customers and we know delivering free games every month is what they want most, so we are refining our Prime benefit to increase our focus there."

This round of job cuts follows a similar action in April when around 100 positions were eliminated in the games unit. Despite the restructuring efforts, Amazon reported exceeding analyst estimates for its third-quarter net income and projected fourth-quarter revenue in line with expectations.

It is worth noting that Amazon has reduced its workforce by over 27,000 positions in the past year as part of a tech industry trend marked by layoffs after companies overhired during the pandemic.

In the email, Hartmann acknowledged the potential impact of these organizational changes on remaining employees. He reassured them by stating, "I recognize that this is the second time this year that you are hearing about org-wide team changes and seeing colleagues go, so let me be very clear when I say this: I remain confident in our future."

As Amazon Games implements its latest round of job cuts, the company aims to streamline its operations and allocate resources more effectively to drive its business forward. It remains to be seen how these changes will shape the company's gaming division in the long run.