The recent closings of two Amazon Fresh grocery stores on Long Island affected more than 300 employees’ jobs, according to letters sent to local officials. 

Amazon.com Inc. announced last week it was closing all 57 of its Amazon Fresh stores, including two in East Setauket and Oceanside, and 14 Amazon Go convenience stores. At that time, the company declined to say how many employees would be affected on Long Island, but said it was working to find those workers jobs elsewhere in the company.

But the Seattle-based ecommerce giant disclosed the number of affected employees to local officials in letters, which were dated Jan. 28 and obtained by Newsday.

About 164 employees, including food production associates, managers and store associates, were impacted at the Fresh in Oceanside, at 3620 Long Beach Rd., according to a letter to Hempstead Town Supervisor John Ferretti and the highest-ranking police, fire and other officials in the store area.

Also, about 144 employees were affected at the Fresh in East Setauket, at 4054 Nesconset Hwy., according to a separate letter to Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico and other officials.

Both stores are already closed, but according to the letters, the employee separations are effective April 28 and employees will be paid wages and other benefits to which they are entitled until that date.

The letters, called WARNs, are required by the New York State Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

The law requires businesses with at least 50 full-time employees in the state to give those workers, local officials and the state labor department at least 90 days’ notice about a site closing if a certain number or percentage of workers are affected. 

Amazon said all the Fresh and Go stores would close by last Sunday, except for those in California, which will remain open longer to comply with state requirements. 

Fresh and Go stores allowed customers to pay digitally without going to traditional checkout counters.

The first Go cashier-less convenience store opened for Amazon’s Seattle employees in 2016. It opened to the public in 2018.

The first Fresh store opened in Woodland Hills, California, in 2020.

By 2023, there were 44 Fresh stores in eight states and Washington, D.C., as well as 30 Go stores. No Go stores opened on Long Island.

But dissatisfied with the stores’ profitability, Amazon closed dozens of Fresh and Go stores over the past few years before calling it quits for the chains completely last week.

“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” Amazon said in a Jan. 27 blog post announcing the shutdown of the Fresh and Go chains.

The three Fresh stores that opened in New York State were on Long Island — the Oceanside store opened in 2022 and two stores opened in East Setauket and Plainview in 2024.

The Plainview store closed in September, less than a year after opening.

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.