Amazon confirms further 16,000 job cuts worldwide

Most of the latest redundancies are expected to be in the US

Amazon is lining up another wave of job cuts next week, according to reports, while Autodesk has confirmed 1,000 roles are to go in sales-related redundancies. Amazon has confirmed it is to cut a further 16,000 jobs globally, taking the total number of roles eliminated since October to about 30,000.

Most of the latest redundancies are expected to be in the US, though some corporate roles in the UK are also likely to be affected.

The announcement follows an internal error earlier this week, when a draft email referring to the layoffs was mistakenly shared with staff.

The message, written by a senior executive at AWS, said employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed. The calendar invitation carrying the draft was titled "Send Project Dawn email", appearing to reference Amazon's internal code name for the restructuring.

The cuts were confirmed on Wednesday by Amazon's senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti.

She said the company had been working to "strengthen the organisation" by reducing management layers and bureaucracy, adding that while many teams completed restructuring in October, others had only finalised plans more recently.

"The reductions we are making today will impact approximately 16,000 roles across Amazon, and we're again working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted," Galetti said.

US-based staff affected by the decision will be given 90 days to seek alternative roles within the company.

Those who do not secure new positions, or choose not to pursue them, will receive severance pay, health benefits where applicable, and career transition support.

Galetti said Amazon did not intend to introduce regular rounds of broad job cuts every few months, but noted that teams would continue to review staffing needs.

Amazon has made several large-scale redundancies since the pandemic, after rapidly expanding its workforce during a surge in online shopping.

In October, the company announced that it was eliminating 14,000 corporate roles. While the company has previously pointed to overhiring as a key factor, investment in AI is also playing a role.

In June, Amazon's chief executive Andy Jassy told staff that efficiency gains from AI would mean fewer employees were needed for certain corporate roles.

Amazon has also confirmed it will continue hiring in "strategic areas", despite the reductions.

The announcement comes in the same week that Amazon said it would close a number of Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores as it shifts investment to faster-growing parts of the business.

The latest cuts follow similar moves across the technology and logistics sectors.

The US delivery firm United Parcel Service has said it plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs this year as it focuses on higher-margin deliveries. UPS has been scaling back lower-value shipments for Amazon, its largest customer and an increasingly direct rival.

Separately, US design software company Autodesk announced last week that it would cut about 7% of its global workforce, affecting around 1,000 employees, as it redirects spending towards AI and cloud-based services.

HP said in November that it planned to cut up to 6,000 jobs worldwide by 2028, while Salesforce confirmed in September that its customer support workforce had been almost halved as AI tools assumed a greater share of customer interactions.