Amazon's Whole Foods to cut hundreds of corporate roles

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon-owned Whole Foods says it is cutting several hundred jobs as part of a process to simplify the grocery chain's operations.

The company plans to make changes to some regional and global support teams over the next two months, according to a memo sent to employees Thursday by the Whole Foods executive team.

The layoffs will take place as part of that shift and will affect less than 0.5% of the company's total workforce, a Whole Foods spokesperson confirmed.

Under the changes, Whole Foods, which operates across nine regions, will shift to six. Among other things, it will also create a companywide operations team and transition some specific store support services from regions to a single team.