Amazon to Axe 30,000 Corporate Jobs as AI Takes Over and Cost-Cutting Deepens
Amazon is preparing to lay off up to 30,000 corporate employees starting Tuesday, as part of a major cost-cutting effort following heavy hiring during the pandemic’s surge in demand, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The cuts would represent roughly 10% of Amazon’s 350,000 corporate staff, though only a small portion of its total workforce of 1.55 million. It would mark the company’s largest round of layoffs since it eliminated around 27,000 jobs beginning in late 2022.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the planned cuts.
Over the past two years, the tech giant has made smaller reductions across several departments, including devices, communications, and podcasting. The latest round of layoffs is expected to affect multiple divisions, including human resources—known internally as People Experience and Technology—devices and services, and operations, among others, sources said.
Managers whose teams are being impacted reportedly received training on Monday on how to inform employees following email notifications that will begin rolling out Tuesday morning.
The move is part of CEO Andy Jassy’s broader effort to streamline operations and reduce layers of management, which he has described as excessive bureaucracy. Earlier this year, Jassy said Amazon had received about 1,500 anonymous submissions through a company hotline designed to flag inefficiencies, leading to more than 450 process improvements.
Jassy also said in June that advances in artificial intelligence would likely result in additional job cuts, particularly through the automation of repetitive tasks.
“This move suggests Amazon is now seeing enough AI-driven efficiency gains across corporate teams to justify significant staff reductions,” said Sky Canaves, an analyst at eMarketer. “At the same time, the company is under short-term pressure to balance out its heavy long-term AI investments.”
The exact number of layoffs remains uncertain and could fluctuate as Amazon adjusts its financial goals. Fortune reported earlier that the human resources department could see reductions of around 15%.
According to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks tech industry job losses, approximately 98,000 employees have been laid off across 216 companies so far this year, compared with 153,000 for all of 2024.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s key profit driver, Amazon Web Services (AWS), posted $30.9 billion in sales in the second quarter, up 17.5% year-over-year—slower growth than Microsoft’s Azure (39%) and Google Cloud’s (32%) gains. AWS is projected to report an 18% increase in third-quarter revenue to $32 billion, slightly below last year’s 19% rise, as it continues to recover from a 15-hour outage last week that disrupted popular services like Snapchat and Venmo.
Despite the job cuts, Amazon is gearing up for another busy holiday season, announcing plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers—the same number as the previous two years—to handle warehouse and delivery operations.
Amazon shares rose 1.3% to $227.11 by Monday’s market close. The company will release its third-quarter earnings on Thursday.