Amazon readies largest corporate layoff since 2022, targeting 30,000 roles: Report

Amazon is set to initiate its largest corporate job cut in years, with plans to eliminate approximately 30,000 positions starting Tuesday, according to an exclusive Reuters report. This significant reduction—which amounts to almost 10 percent of its corporate workforce—comes as the e-commerce giant seeks to manage mounting expenses and stabilize its staffing levels following the pandemic-driven surge in hiring, the report added.

Reuters reported that the widespread job eliminations, set to begin with email notifications on Tuesday morning, will affect several major divisions, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Operations, Devices and Services, and Human Resources (known internally as PXT).

Managers overseeing these impacted teams reportedly underwent specialized training on Monday to prepare for communicating the news to staff. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the details of the restructuring, said Reuters.

In an earlier development this month, reports surfaced that Amazon plans to significantly escalate its reliance on robotics, a strategic shift that could replace up to 600,000 human jobs by 2033, according to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The Times report indicated that Amazon is developing and deploying more advanced robots primarily to meet rising demand without increasing its headcount.

Crucially, the internal documents also reveal a plan to manage the resulting social fallout: Amazon aims to cultivate an image as a "good corporate citizen" through community engagement. To control the public narrative, the company explicitly discusses substituting terms like "automation" and "AI" with "advanced technology," and using "cobot" instead of "robot" to frame the change as collaboration, the Times report said.

However, the company refutes these charges, claiming they are incomplete and misleading.

Amazon’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, has previously told employees that efficiency gains from artificial intelligence would reduce the size of the company’s corporate workforce. In a June companywide email, published on Amazon’s corporate blog, Jassy wrote that staff who adopt AI would be “well-positioned” while acknowledging that headcount would decline as technology is deployed more broadly.

Amazon continues to hire in other areas. Earlier in the month, the company announced plans to hire 250,000 temporary workers in the United States for its annual holiday-season surge in warehouses and logistics operations.