Amazon to cut around 14K corporate jobs

Amazon is planning to cut 14,000 roles from its corporate workforce as part of an internal restructuring, according to a message shared with employees on Tuesday.

"We’re working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted, including offering most employees 90 days to look for a new role internally (the timing will vary some based on local laws), and our recruiting teams will prioritize internal candidates to help as many people as possible find new roles within Amazon," the message said. 

Sources told Reuters that Amazon has been working to reduce expenses and correct overhiring that took place during the pandemic’s surge in demand. 

The cuts may impact several divisions, including Human Resources (known as People Experience and Technology), Operations, Devices and Services and Amazon Web Services, Reuters reported.

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Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Managers of affected teams were required to complete training on Monday to prepare for communicating with staff, following email notifications set to go out Tuesday morning, sources said, according to Reuters.

"For our teammates who are unable to find a new role at Amazon or who choose not to look for one, we’ll offer them transition support including severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits, and more," the employee message, written by Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, said. 

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Workers at an Amazon office in Bellevue, Washington, on July 18, 2024. (Grant Hindsley/Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Amazon has previously explored several strategies to reduce its workforce, including enforcing a strict return-to-office policy, launching a program identifying inefficiencies and integrating artificial intelligence technologies, Reuters reported.

Earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy launched an initiative to reduce the number of managers by creating an anonymous complaint line to identify inefficiencies, Reuters reported. The program generated roughly 1,500 responses and led to more than 450 process changes, Jassy said.

A full-time return-to-office mandate also took effect this year. Amazon likely hoped that the strict policy would prompt some employees to resign voluntarily, reducing headcount without severance costs, sources told Reuters. However, the policy reportedly did not produce enough departures, contributing to the need for a larger round of layoffs.

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Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., speaks during a summit in San Francisco, on June 8, 2022. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Jassy said in June that the growing use of artificial intelligence tools was expected to also drive job cuts.

"We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," Jassy previously said about Generative AI. 

As of Monday, more than 200 tech companies had eliminated roughly 98,000 positions this year, according to Layoffs.fyi.

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While Intel has cut 27,000 employees, Microsoft laid off 15,000, Salesforce reduced its workforce by more than 9,000, Meta eliminated roughly 4,000 jobs and Google cut 200 positions this year, according to the site. 

Reuters contributed to this report.