Amazon is preparing to cut thousands more jobs as part of a broader shift driven by artificial intelligence and internal restructuring, according to reports.
The world's largest retailer is expected to announce a second round of layoffs next week, after eliminating 14,000 white-collar roles in October. The latest cuts are expected to be of similar scale, which would move Amazon closer to its long-term goal of losing about 30,000 positions.
The company, founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, executive chairman and its largest individual shareholder, employs about 1.58 million people globally. While the planned cuts represent a small portion of its total workforce, it accounts for about 10 percent of Amazon's corporate workforce.
According to Reuters, the cuts are expected to impact teams at Amazon Web Services, retail operations, Prime Video and the company's human resources division, known internally as People Experience and Technology. Other business units may also be affected.
Amazon previously linked the job cuts in October to the rapid adoption of AI, telling employees in an internal memo that the technology represents the most significant change since the advent of the Internet, enabling companies to innovate at an unprecedented pace.
However, Andy Jassy later rejected the idea that the layoffs were driven primarily by cost pressures or by AI alone. Speaking during the company's third-quarter earnings call, Jassy said the cuts were more about organizational design.
“It's the culture,” he told analysts. “You end up with a lot more people than before, and you have a lot more layers.”
Jassy previously warned that Amazon's corporate workforce will shrink over time as efficiencies gained from AI reduce the need for certain roles. Like many big technology companies, Amazon is increasingly using AI to write software code and deploying so-called AI agents to automate routine tasks.
The company demonstrated a new generation of AI models at its annual Amazon Web Services conference in December, underscoring how central the technology has become to its future strategy.
If confirmed, the latest cuts would be the largest in Amazon's three-decade history. The company previously had cut about 27,000 jobs in 2022 as it adjusted to slower growth after the pandemic surge.
Employees affected by the October round of layoffs were placed on the payroll for 90 days, during which they could apply for internal roles or look for work elsewhere. This period is set to end on Monday, raising expectations that a new wave of announcements is on the way.
The move highlights how even the largest technology groups are reshaping their workforces as AI transforms the way corporate operations operate — raising new questions about the long-term impact of automation on white-collar employment.
Amy Ingham
Amy is a newly qualified journalist specializing in business journalism with responsibility for news content at Business Matters, the UK's largest print and online source of current business news.