Amazon plans thousands more corporate job cuts next week, sources say
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Layoffs represent nearly 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce and will to affect AWS, retail and HR units., sources said.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its broader goal of trimming some 30,000 corporate workers, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The company in October cut some 14,000 white-collar jobs, about half of the 30,000 target
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
Jobs in the company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS), retail, Prime Video and human resources, known as People Experience and Technology, units are slated to be affected, the people said, though the full scope was unclear. The people cautioned that the details of Amazon’s plans could change.
The e-commerce giant tied the October round of job cuts to the rise of artificial intelligence software, saying in an internal letter that “this generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before”.
However, chief executive Andy Jassy later told analysts during the company’s third-quarter earnings call that the reduction was “not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven”. Rather, he said, “it’s culture”, meaning the company has too much bureaucracy.
“You end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers,” he said. Mr Jassy had said earlier in 2025 that he expected Amazon’s corporate workforce to shrink over time as a result of efficiencies gained from the use of AI.
Corporations are increasingly using AI to write code for their software and adopting AI agents that automate routine tasks, as they look to save costs and cut reliance on people. Amazon touted its latest AI models during its annual AWS cloud computing conference in December.
The full 30,000 jobs would represent a small portion of Amazon’s 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10 per cent of the firm’s corporate workforce. The majority of Amazon’s workers are in fulfillment centres and warehouses.
It would be the largest layoff in Amazon’s three-decade history. The company trimmed about 27,000 jobs in 2022.
Affected workers in October were told they would remain on the payroll for 90 days, during which time they could apply for jobs internally or seek other employment. That period expires on Jan 26. REUTERS
