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Amazon packages move along a conveyor at an Amazon warehouse in Arizona.

Ross D. Franklin/AP

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Ross D. Franklin/AP

Amazon packages move along a conveyor at an Amazon warehouse in Arizona.

Ross D. Franklin/AP

After

Amazon lost $2.7 billion last year, the company said on Thursday. This was despite holiday-season sales growing 9%. Amazon’s shares fell in after hours trading.

far, the biggest culprit for Amazon’s losses over the year was the company’s hefty investment in the electric automaker Rivian whose value plummeted last year and ate into Amazon’s bottom line.

Amazon had taken a 20% stake in Rivian and has begun rolling out the carmaker’s electric delivery vans. Rivian wanted to replicate Tesla’s success and held one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history. But last year, the exuberance faded, the carmaker made pricing missteps and it fell short of growth targets. Its stock price dropped 82%.

For Amazon, the loss on its investment comes right when it contends with the need to recalibrate after a pandemic-era upsurge.

During the pandemic, the appetite for online shopping seemed to promise exponential growth, and many believed the habit changes could be permanent. Amazon couldn’t hire and built warehouses fast enough; its profits doubled and kept growing. But then people returned to physical stores, switched from cocooning to travel and outings, and eventually got more hesitant to spend as inflation rose.

Last month, Amazon announced it expected to cut 18,000 jobs, or about 5% of the corporate workforce. CEO Andy Jassy, in a blog post, referenced “the uncertain economy” and the company’s pandemic-era hiring spree.

At the peak, in late 2021-early 2022, Amazon employed more than 1.6 million part-time and full-time workers globally. Thursday’s financial report shows that number is now down to 1.5 million.

In October, the company — the second-largest private employer in the U.S. — raised the average starting pay for U.S. warehouse and delivery workers to $19 an hour from $18 to stay competitive.

Amazon also began reconsidering its warehouse expansion plans. Industry reports tracked cancellations, closures and delays. And as companies scale back in the face of high inflation and interest rates, Amazon has seen growth slow down in its biggest money-maker, the cloud computing business.

When asked Thursday by reporters about the slowdown at Amazon Web Services, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said: “We realize everyone’s trying to cut their budgets – we are in our main Amazon business, in our infrastructure as well…We do expect to see some slower growth rates for the next few quarters.”

Still, Amazon continues to invest in new ventures. The company is working to close its $4 billion deal to buy One Medical, a chain of primary-care clinics. And it launched a $5 subscription service for generic prescription medication for its paying Prime members, hoping to draw more people into the program.

Separately, the company faces a protracted fight against an upstart unionization push. Amazon last month lost its bid to overturn the first-ever union win at a Staten Island warehouse. Federal labor officials ordered the company to begin bargaining with the Amazon Labor Union. But the matter is likely to reach courts.

In recent weeks, Amazon received a series of citations for safety violations from federal inspectors at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This is for six warehouses in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois and New York.

OSHA officials found Amazon warehouse workers at high risk of lower back and other injuries from twisting, bending and lifting that they perform as much as nine times per minute. The company was expected to appeal, and a spokesperson said the allegations didn’t “reflect the reality of safety at our sites.”

Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR recent financial supporters and pays to distribute some of our content.