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Amazon is preparing to lay off up to 30,000 corporate employees starting Tuesday, as part of efforts to cut costs and address overhiring during pandemic peak demand, according to sources familiar with the plans. While this number accounts for less than 2% of Amazon’s total workforce of approximately 1.55 million, it represents nearly 10% of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate staff. This would be the largest reduction since late 2022, when around 27,000 jobs were eliminated.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment. Over the past two years, the company has gradually reduced staffing in various divisions, including devices, communications, and podcasting. The upcoming layoffs are expected to impact several units such as People Experience and Technology (PXT), operations, devices, services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Managers involved in affected teams have reportedly been trained on how to communicate the layoffs before email notifications are sent out on Tuesday morning. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is leading an effort to streamline the organization by reducing bureaucracy and management layers. Initiatives include an anonymous feedback system that has generated over 1,500 responses and led to more than 450 process improvements.
Jassy has indicated that increased adoption of artificial intelligence tools is likely to lead to additional job cuts, particularly by automating routine tasks. “This move suggests that Amazon is beginning to see sufficiently significant productivity gains from AI within its corporate teams to justify substantial layoffs,” said Sky Canaves, an analyst at eMarketer. The company is also under short-term pressure to offset ongoing investments in AI infrastructure.
The full scope of this round of layoffs remains uncertain, and the figure may fluctuate as Amazon’s financial priorities evolve. Earlier reports suggested that around 15% of the human resources division could be affected. Part of the layoffs are attributed to Amazon’s early-year attempt to enforce a strict return-to-office policy, requiring employees to work onsite five days a week—an initiative that failed to produce the expected attrition.
Some employees who do not swipe in daily, often due to living far from corporate offices or personal reasons, are being told they have voluntarily resigned and will leave without severance—a move that results in savings for the company.
According to Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts, approximately 98,000 tech workers have been laid off across 216 companies so far this year, with total layoffs reaching around 153,000 in 2024.
AWS, Amazon’s biggest profit driver, reported second-quarter revenue of $30.9 billion—up 17.5%, but below the 39% growth achieved by Microsoft Azure and 32% by Google Cloud. Analysts expect AWS’s third-quarter sales to increase by roughly 18% to $32 billion, a slowdown from last year’s 19% growth. AWS is still recovering from a widespread internet outage last week that temporarily disrupted popular services like Snapchat and Venmo.
Looking ahead, Amazon appears optimistic about the upcoming holiday shopping season, planning to hire around 250,000 seasonal workers to support warehouse and delivery operations, matching the hiring levels of the past two years.
Additionally, Amazon announced a reorganization within its People Experience and Technology division, mainly promoting personnel into new roles focused on diversity initiatives. Shares closed Monday at $226.97, up 1.2%, ahead of the company’s third-quarter earnings report scheduled for Thursday.
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