Amazon plans to lay off up to 30,000 corporate roles starting today, Tuesday, October 28, in a bid to reduce spending and compensate for overhiring during the pandemic's peak demand.
The amount represents only a small portion of Amazon's 1.55 million overall employees, but nearly 10 per cent of its around 350,000 corporate employees. This would be Amazon's largest round of layoffs since late 2022, when it started to reduce over 27,000 people.
Reuters reported that an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
Over the last two years, Amazon has cut smaller numbers of jobs across a variety of departments, including devices, communications, and podcasts.
The layoffs, which began this week, may affect a number of sectors, including human resources (known as People Experience and Technology or PXT), operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services.
Managers of impacted teams were urged to undergo training on Monday, October 27, on how to interact with staff following email notifications that would begin on Tuesday morning.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is launching an initiative to decrease what he calls an excess of bureaucracy, including lowering the number of managers. He established an anonymous complaint line to highlight inefficiencies, which has resulted in approximately 1,500 answers and over 450 process adjustments, he stated earlier this year.
In June, Jassy predicted that greater usage of artificial intelligence tools would result in additional job cuts, notably through the automation of repetitive and regular jobs.
The extent of this round of job cuts was not immediately evident. According to people familiar with the situation, the number may alter over time as Amazon's financial priorities shift.
