Hundreds of positions to go at HQ and global operations despite several years of significant growth.

The cuts were first reported by the Seattle Times, which said the actions are focused on streamlining the firm’s consumer retail business. Amazon said it is working to offer affected staff new roles, and that it expects “small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others”.

Amazon, which lists thousands of job openings on its website, has expanded rapidly in recent years, both through skyrocketing sales and acquisitions of companies such as grocer Whole Foods. The company reported about $3b (£2.2b) in profit on nearly $178b in sales last year.

Its fourth-quarter sales rose by 38% to hit a quarterly record of $60.5b, while profits for the three-month period more than doubled to $1.9b, compared with $749m in the last three months of 2016. The figures were boosted by a tax benefit of about $789m related to the new US tax law.

Amazon counted more than 560,000 full and part-time workers worldwide at the end of December, an expansion of more than 65% from the previous year.