- Amazon plans a second round of corporate job cuts next week, aiming to eliminate about 30,000 white-collar roles in total, according to sources cited by Reuters.
- Roughly 14,000 corporate jobs were already cut in October, and the upcoming round is expected to be of a similar size, potentially starting as early as Tuesday.
- The layoffs are expected to hit AWS, retail, Prime Video, and human resources (People Experience and Technology), though details could still change.
- CEO Andy Jassy said the cuts are driven mainly by company culture and excess bureaucracy, not by short-term finances or AI replacing workers.
- Earlier, Amazon had linked job reductions to AI-driven efficiencies, and Jassy has said the corporate workforce will continue shrinking as AI boosts productivity.
- The full 30,000 cuts would equal nearly 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce, though only a small fraction of its 1.58 million total employees, most of whom work in warehouses.
- If completed, this would be Amazon’s largest layoff ever, surpassing the roughly 27,000 jobs cut in 2022, with affected employees previously kept on payroll for 90 days to seek internal or external roles.
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-plans-thousands-more-corporate-job-cuts-next-week-sources-say-2026-01-22/