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said it is halting some of its diversity and inclusion initiatives,
joining a growing list of major corporations that have made similar moves
in the face of increasing public and legal scrutiny.

In a Dec. 16 internal note to staffers that was obtained by CNBC, Candi Castleberry, Amazon’s VP of inclusive experiences and technology, said the company was in the process of “winding down outdated programs and
materials” as part of a broader review of hundreds of initiatives.

“Rather than have individual groups build programs, we are focusing on
programs with proven outcomes — and we also aim to foster a more truly inclusive culture,” Castleberry wrote in the note, which was first
reported by Bloomberg.

Castleberry’s memo doesn’t say which programs the company is dropping as a result of its review. The company typically releases annual data on the
racial and gender makeup of its workforce, and it also operates Black,
LGBTQ+, indigenous and veteran employee resource groups, among others.

In 2020, Amazon set a goal of doubling the number of Black employees in
vice president and director roles. It announced the same goal in 2021 and
also pledged to hire 30% more Black employees for product manager,
engineer and other corporate roles.

Meta on Friday made a similar retreat from its diversity, equity and
inclusion initiatives. The social media company said it’s ending its
approach of considering qualified candidates from underrepresented groups
for open roles and its equity and inclusion training programs. The
decision drew backlash from Meta employees, including one staffer who
wrote, “If you don’t stand by your principles when things get difficult,
they aren’t values. They’re hobbies.”

Other companies, including McDonald’s
, Walmart
and Ford
, have also made changes to their DEI initiatives in recent months. Rising conservative backlash and the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative
action in 2023 spurred many corporations to alter or discontinue their DEI programs.

Amazon, which is the nation’s second-largest private employer behind
Walmart, also recently made changes to its “Our Positions” webpage, which
lays out the company’s stance on a variety of policy issues. Previously,
there were separate sections dedicated to “Equity for Black people,” “Diversity, equity and inclusion” and “LGBTQ+ rights,” according to
records from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

The current webpage has streamlined those sections into a single
paragraph. The section says that Amazon believes in creating a diverse and inclusive company and that inequitable treatment of anyone is
unacceptable. The Information earlier reported the changes.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told CNBC in a statement: “We update this
page from time to time to ensure that it reflects updates we’ve made to
various programs and positions.”

Read the full memo from Amazon’s Castleberry:

Team,

As we head toward the end of the year, I want to give another update on
the work we’ve been doing around representation and inclusion.

As a large, global company that operates in different countries and
industries, we serve hundreds of millions of customers from a range of backgrounds and globally diverse communities. To serve them effectively,
we need millions of employees and partners that reflect our customers and communities. We strive to be representative of those customers and build a culture that’s inclusive for everyone.

In the last few years we took a new approach, reviewing hundreds of
programs across the company, using science to evaluate their
effectiveness, impact, and ROI — identifying the ones we believed should continue. Each one of these addresses a specific disparity, and is
designed to end when that disparity is eliminated. In parallel, we worked
to unify employee groups together under one umbrella, and build programs
that are open to all. Rather than have individual groups build programs,
we are focusing on programs with proven outcomes — and we also aim to
foster a more truly inclusive culture. You can read more about this on our Together at Amazon page on A to Z.

This approach — where we move away from programs that were separate from
our existing processes, and instead integrating our work into existing processes so they become durable — is the evolution to “built in” and
“born inclusive,” instead of “bolted on.” As part of this evolution, we’ve
been winding down outdated programs and materials, and we’re aiming to
complete that by the end of 2024. We also know there will always be
individuals or teams who continue to do well-intentioned things that don’t align with our company-wide approach, and we might not always see those
right away. But we’ll keep at it.

We’ll continue to share ongoing updates, and appreciate your hard work in driving this progress. We believe this is important work, so we’ll keep investing in programs that help us reflect those audiences, help employees grow, thrive, and connect, and we remain dedicated to delivering inclusive experiences for customers, employees, and communities around the world.

#InThisTogether,

Candi

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/amazon-halt-dei-programs- .html?__source=OTS|finance|related|story|&par=OTS&doc=108085256

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