Why Amazon, Alphabet are letting some healthcare employees go

Why Amazon, Alphabet are letting some healthcare employees go unknown

Amazon and Alphabet's healthcare arm Verily said it would let go some of its healthcare employees as an uncertain economy has been causing financial and operational challenges for tech companies.

Most recently, Verily said it would lay off 15 percent of its staff, sunset some of its healthcare projects and restructure its leadership.

"We cannot do everything and have had to make some difficult choices," said Verily's CEO, Stephen Gillett, in an email to employees on Jan. 11.

The healthcare unit will discontinue work on remote patient monitoring for heart failure and microneedles for drug delivery. The company will also say goodbye to long-time team member Jordi Parramon, who currently serves as the president of Verily's devices businesses.

The restructuring comes as the company is looking to focus on areas of precision health, data and evidence.

Amazon is also letting go of some of its healthcare employees who worked on Amazon Care, the company's in-person and virtual primary care services.

The company said back in August that it was planning to shutter the service on Dec. 31.

The shutdown caused 159 Amazon Care employees to lose their jobs, as well as 236 employees from standalone company Care Medical.

Care Medical employees were in charge of treating Amazon Care patients.

The layoffs come as Amazon deemed the service "not a complete enough offering" for large enterprise customers.