Amazon confirms cuts of 14,000 in corporate workforce
Cuts make up approximately 4% global corporate workforce
Amazon cuts 14,000 from its corporate workforce in pursuit of agility and AI investment
The layoffs fall considerably short of the 30,000 number mooted in earlier reports.
Nonetheless, the cuts will affect almost every Amazon business, including human resources, operations, devices and services, and AWS.
The rationale behind the cuts is clearly presented in a statement from Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, Beth Galetti.
“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well. Across our businesses, we're delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results. What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly.”
Galetti continues:
“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convicted that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”
Those effected by the cuts will find out later today. Galetti’s statement says that most employees will receive 90 days to seek a new role within Amazon, and those who fail to find one will receive “transition support.”
Amazon employees can’t say they weren’t warned.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees earlier this year. “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce.”
Amazon corporate workforce is approximately 350,000 strong, so cuts of 14,000 constitute approximately 4% of the overall workforce. Reports a few days ago indicated that the company’s HR division, known as the People eXperience and Technology (PXT) was likely to be targeted for cutting. PXT division employees number approximately 10,000 globally.
Amazon has been trimming its workforce since 2022, which has resulted in more than 27,000 employees being cut. Job reductions have continued this year, though at a smaller scale. AWS, Amazon stores, communications and devices divisions have all been hit with layoffs in recent months.
Recent reports suggest that the company is seeking to automate 75% of its operations by 2033 – a move which would displace hundreds of thousands of warehouse roles. Another report suggested, AWS had removed 40% of its devops team - shortly before the outage that took down hundreds of popular websites and apps.
In June this year, the company ratcheted up pressure on employees to get back into offices with thousands of employees in the US being given 60 days to begin the process of relocation to main hubs in Seattle, Arlington and Washington DC. If the employee chose not to do so, they would be considered to have left the company therefore ineligible for severance pay.
Microsoft has laid off about 15,000 people so far this year, while Meta last week eliminated roughly 600 jobs within its AI unit. Google and Salesforce have also made cuts.
Amazon is set to report quarterly results later this week.