Amazon.com Inc. announced on March 20 that it would cut an additional 9,000 jobs in the coming weeks due to overhiring and unfavorable economic conditions.

The news comes only two months after the e-commerce-focused technology company announced its original plan to lay off 18,000 employees in January.

“As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks—mostly in AWS, PXT, Advertising and Twitch,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a statement. “This was a difficult decision, but one we think is best for the company.”

Amazon is going through one of its most extensive layoffs in company history after it and other companies in the technology sector went on a hiring spree during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We saw companies get a little too ambitious with hiring and growth, and they went for volume rather than strategy,” Lupe Colangelo, the interim head of talent and operations at the talent recruitment firm General Assembly, told CNBC. “It’s not ‘you need 100 developers.’ It’s figuring out what you need.”

Amazon hired around 798,000 employees during the pandemic, according to CNBC. This resulted in the company having a global workforce of 1.6 million by the end of 2021.

Amazon tailored its workforce to meet changing consumer demand during the pandemic, when it saw a 38% increase in net sales and a net income increase of $21.3 billion, according to its 2020 fourth-quarter earnings report.

When consumers started returning to in-person shopping, Amazon’s financial performance declined, inspiring the company to reprioritize its business strategy.

Amazon Web Services is the company’s biggest revenue generator, but due to unforeseen macroeconomic conditions, a 20% year-on-year increase in revenue was recorded for its 2022 fourth quarter. In comparison, the subsidiary reported 27.5% and 33% growth in the third and second quarters of 2022, respectively, according to the news outlet CIO.

In a Feb. 2 earnings call, Jassy said that reducing costs in the operations network is the company’s highest priority.

Eight branches of “Amazon Go” stores in the United States are slated to close on April 1 due to economic uncertainty impacting businesses in the technology sector.

Additionally, almost 100 Amazon facilities have either closed or reported delays in their construction plans, accordingMarc Wulfraat, founder of the supply and logistics consulting firm MWPVL, in an interview with Supply Chain Dive.

Mass rounds of layoffs have become commonplace within the technology sector due to increased hiring during the pandemic.

According to data sourced from Layoffs.fyi, an online tracker that monitors job losses in the technology sector, 527 companies have laid off 153,548 employees since the onset of the pandemic.

High-profile technology companies such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced layoffs similar to Amazon’s this year.

“None of these companies obviously are on the brink of disappearance,” Carolina Milanesi, a consumer technology analyst for the research firm Creative Strategies, told NPR. “But I do think that they are doing what they can do to prepare what might be to come — expecting some of their customers to pull back in spending.”