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Photo Credit: Anirudh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The bloodletting continues. On Wednesday\u2014after an internal email leaked\u2014Amazon announced plans<\/a> to cut about 16,000 corporate jobs. It\u2019s Amazon\u2019s second round of major layoffs since October last year, when the company let 14,000 corporate employees go.<\/p>\n The job cuts are part of an ongoing effort to \u201cstrengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.\u201d This, CNBC<\/em> points out<\/a>, coincides with the company\u2019s greater push to heavily invest in AI.<\/p>\n In October, Amazon indicated that more cuts were on the way in 2026 as the company found \u201cadditional places we can remove layers.\u201d Regardless, Amazon\u2019s senior vice president of people, experience, and technology, Beth Galetti, said it was not the company\u2019s desire to create \u201ca new rhythm\u201d of layoffs every few months.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not our plan,\u201d said Galetti in an Amazon blog post. \u201cBut just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of the third quarter, Amazon had around 1.58 million employees, but that number is overwhelmingly composed of warehouse and logistics workers. Altogether, the 30,000 job cuts since October make up around 10% of Amazon\u2019s corporate and tech workforce, which makes up about 350,000 people.<\/p>\n Amazon laid off over 27,000 employees between 2022 and 2023 alone, and conducted a series of smaller cuts across the company in 2024.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the company has been cutting costs in an effort to invest more heavily in AI and expand its data centers. This week, Amazon also ended its Fresh and Go grocery chains.<\/p>\n Its efforts to slash costs led the company to announce in October that it expects capital expenditures to reach $125 billion this year\u2014the highest spending forecast among the major tech companies. Moreover, CEO Andy Jassy said in June<\/a> that \u201cefficiency gains\u201d from AI would undoubtedly cause Amazon\u2019s corporate headcount to fall over the next few years.<\/p>\n <\/div>\nAmazon employees actually received an email about the forthcoming layoffs on Tuesday\u2014which was apparently in error\u2014and which acknowledged \u201corganizational changes\u201d at the company.<\/h4>\n