Seattle— In what is expected to be its largest round of layoffs since 2022, Amazon is preparing to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs starting Tuesday, as part of an ongoing effort to streamline operations and offset overhiring during the pandemic boom, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The layoffs represent nearly 10% of Amazon’s 3,50,000 corporate workforce, though only a small fraction of its 1.55 million total employees worldwide. The reductions are expected to impact multiple divisions, including Human Resources (People Experience and Technology or PXT), Operations, Devices and Services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Managers were reportedly briefed on Monday on how to handle the layoffs, with email notifications to employees scheduled to begin Tuesday morning. The move comes under the direction of CEO Andy Jassy, who has been pursuing aggressive cost-cutting and organizational reforms to eliminate what he calls “excess bureaucracy.”
Jassy earlier revealed that an internal anonymous complaint system led to over 1,500 reports and 450 operational process changes, as part of a broader efficiency drive. He has also acknowledged that artificial intelligence tools are increasingly automating repetitive corporate tasks — a shift that analysts say has accelerated this round of job cuts.
“Amazon appears to be realizing significant AI-driven productivity gains, particularly in administrative and operational roles,” said Sky Canaves, senior analyst at eMarketer. “The company is under short-term pressure to balance these gains against its heavy long-term AI infrastructure investments.”
Sources said the full scale of the layoffs remains fluid and may evolve based on Amazon’s financial performance. Fortune earlier reported that the human resources division alone could face a 15% cut.
The layoffs follow Amazon’s return-to-office policy, one of the strictest in the tech industry, requiring most employees to be physically present five days a week. According to insiders, the policy did not trigger the desired level of attrition, prompting broader layoffs. Employees who fail to report to offices regularly are being classified as having “voluntarily resigned,” thus forfeiting severance packages.
The company’s cloud unit, AWS, remains its biggest profit engine, generating $30.9 billion in second-quarter sales, up 17.5% year-on-year but lagging behind growth rates at Microsoft Azure (39%) and Google Cloud (32%). Analysts estimate AWS sales rose by about 18% in the third quarter, a slight slowdown from last year’s 19%. The division is still recovering from a 15-hour outage last week that disrupted services like Snapchat and Venmo.
Meanwhile, Amazon continues to prepare for a strong holiday season, maintaining plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers, the same as in previous years.
In a related development, the company also reorganized a portion of its PXT unit handling diversity initiatives, with several executives being promoted, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters.
Amazon shares closed 1.2% higher at $226.97 on Monday, ahead of its scheduled third-quarter earnings report on Thursday.
