Amazon Layoffs: E-commerce giant plans biggest job cuts since 2022 — over 30,000 corporate roles at risk, says report
Amazon is reportedly preparing to eliminate up to 30,000 corporate positions starting Tuesday, October 28; This marks the largest workforce reduction since 2022. Reuters Report by quoting people who know the subject.
Cost-cutting move comes after Amazon’s excessive hiring during the pandemic
The move is part of Amazon’s broader cost-cutting strategy; Amazon aims to streamline and recalibrate operations after excessive hiring during the pandemic, when increased online demand led to aggressive expansion across divisions.
While the planned layoffs represent only a small fraction of Amazon’s 1.55 million global workforce, they represent almost 10% of its 350,000 corporate employees.
The disruptions underscore a shift in focus from rapid growth to sustainable profitability as the e-commerce giant navigates a more cautious economic environment and slower consumer spending trends.
Biggest layoffs since 2022 as economic volatility continues
Amazon last carried out large-scale layoffs in late 2022, when approximately 27,000 roles were eliminated across business units.
It was reported earlier this month that Amazon was preparing to lay off 15 percent of its human resources staff, and additional layoffs were likely in other departments. Luck.
Amazon’s human resources division, known internally as the PXT or People eXperience Technology team, will be hit hard, but other areas of Amazon’s core consumer business are also likely to be affected.
Amazon declines to comment as managers undergo layoff training
Amazon has refused to comment publicly on the planned layoffs despite numerous requests from the media. According to Reuters, managers of the affected teams were instructed to receive communications training on Monday in preparation for staff notifications, which are expected to begin via email on Tuesday morning.
CEO Andy Jassy doubles down on efficiency and AI transformation
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has already overseen the largest layoffs in company history from late 2022 through 2023, when the company cut at least 27,000 corporate jobs; this accounted for a high-single-digit percentage of the company’s office work. Many other Big Tech companies also reduced headcount during that period as the pandemic subsided and consumer demand trends changed.
Many employers are now looking to harness the power of AI to reduce the need to keep the same level of human staff on their payroll, initially for mundane and repetitive tasks and eventually for more complex work.
Adopting AI that will reshape Amazon’s future workforce
Andy Jassy himself is one of them. The CEO fired a bit of a warning shot at his own employees in June as he encouraged them to welcome this new AI-powered era.
“Those who embrace this change, become AI-savvy, and help us develop our AI capabilities internally and deliver them to our customers will be high impact and well-positioned to help us reinvent the company,” he wrote in a companywide email that was also posted on Amazon’s corporate blog.
At the same time, Jassy also noted that there won’t be room for everyone on the bus: “We expect this to reduce our total corporate workforce as we see efficiency gains from using AI widely across the company.”
Andy Jassy – ‘cost cutting’?
Since replacing Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021, Jassy has built a reputation as a cost cutter and operational reformer. Amazon managers routinely need to meet ‘no-regret attrition’ (URA) targets; it’s a measure of the percentage of staff a company can afford to lose through voluntary departures, managed exits, or layoffs.
However, people familiar with the developments said: Luck The latest wave of cuts is being handled differently within the company, signaling a broader restructuring effort rather than the routine firing of underperforming staff.
