With the economy at large and the tech market in particular suffering a slowdown, Microsoft (MSFT  ), Intel (INTC  ), Meta (META  ), Google (GOOGL  ), and now Amazon (AMZN  ) have each implemented some form of hiring freeze or slowdown for 2022, and Snapchat (SNAP  ), Patreon, Oracle (ORCL  ), Tesla (TSLA  ), Peloton (PTON  ), Shopify (SHOP  ), and Redfin (RDFN  ) have each laid off significant portions of their workforce.

Amazon recently announced to staff in an email obtained by The New York Times that it would be freezing corporate hiring across all divisions for the remainder of 2022. Prior to the announcement, Amazon had 10,000 open positions that would fall into that group, meaning the majority of Amazon's openings are now closed. One are that will be exempt is Amazon's profitable cloud computing division.

"Amazon continues to have a significant number of open roles available across the company," Amazon spokesman Brad Glasser said in a statement. "We expect to keep adjusting our hiring strategies in each of these businesses at various junctures," Glasser added, referring to the various Amazon divisions.

As the country's second-largest employer, topped only by Walmart (WMT  ), Amazon's hiring freeze is perhaps the most significant sign of a slowing jobs market so far, but it's far from the first. After all, Walmart itself has also announced that it will be reducing the number of seasonal part-time hires for this year.

In addition, Groupon laid off 15% of its workers this year, Patreon laid off a whopping 17% of its workforce, and Snapchat recently announced plans to layoff 20% of its 6,400 workers. A month after announcing its own plans to slow hiring, Apple laid off around 100 workers. According to data from the professional social networking site Blind, more than 650 tech startups and firms have laid off more than 110,000 employees this year alone.

Outside of the tech industry, other companies are also cutting back labor spending. Lyft (LYFT  ) has frozen hiring for 2022; Gap Inc. (GPS  ) has announced it will be cutting 500 corporate jobs; Twilio (TWLO  ) plans to layoff 11% of its staff; Sweetgreen (SG  ) restaurant chain is laying off 5% of its support staff; Fender guitars laid off 300 employees.

Following a labor shortage at the beginning of the year, there's no denying that the hiring frenzie has slowed. According to the Labor Department, much of the jobs market has remained strong despite the slowdown, but many employers are reducing the number of openings available, and bonus packages and other incentives are likely to be reduced.

Still, there are some reasons to feel positive about the jobs market. The number of layoffs seen in August was still lower than average, and new positions are still being added. Amazon itself announced that it will be hiring 150,000 new operations staff members for the holiday season just a few days after announcing its corporate hiring freeze.