Amazon is to cut hundreds of positions at its headquarters and global operations.

The cuts were first reported by the Seattle Times, which the company is focused on streamlining the firm's consumer retail business, as reported by the BBC.

Amazon said it is working to offer affected staff new roles and will continue to hire in many other areas.

The company lists thousands of jobs on its website, has expanded rapidly in recent years, both through soaring sales and acquisitions of companies such as grocer Whole Foods, which closed in Cheltenham last November.

It reported about £2.2bn in profit on over £128bn in sales last year.

Amazon's fourth-quarter sales rose by an incredible 38% to hit a quarterly record of £43.56bn, while profits for the three-month period more than doubled to £1.368n, 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 had more than 560,000 full and part-time workers worldwide at the end of December, an expansion of more than 65 per cent from the previous year.

The firm's website shows many of the new positions report to Amazon Web Services, the firm's profitable cloud computing division.

The firm is also building up units focused on the company's Alexa robot and other devices.