Amazon and Salesforce, makers of business software, are the latest US technology companies to announce significant job cuts as they trim payrolls that grew rapidly during the pandemic lockdown. Amazon announced on Wednesday that it will lay off approximately 18,000 employees. The layoffs are the largest in the company’s history, though they represent only a small portion of its 1.5 million global workforce. “Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will do so in the future," CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees made public by the company. “With a stronger cost structure,…