Amazon is making ready for one more spherical of company job cuts subsequent week, based on a report from Reuters on Thursday. Bloomberg additionally reported that layoffs might start subsequent week. We reached out to Amazon for remark.
Amazon laid off about 14,000 employees globally in October. The corporate indicated that extra layoffs might happen in 2026 whereas it might proceed to rent in key strategic areas.
Reuters reported that the newest cuts can be “roughly the identical as final yr.” The general variety of cuts may very well be the biggest in Amazon’s historical past, exceeding the 27,000 positions that the corporate eradicated in 2023 throughout a number of rounds of layoffs.
In a memo to staff despatched in October, Amazon human assets chief Beth Galetti wrote that the corporate was “shifting assets to make sure we’re investing in our greatest bets and what issues most to our clients’ present and future wants.”
She added: “This era of AI is probably the most transformative expertise we’ve seen because the Web, and it’s enabling corporations to innovate a lot sooner than ever earlier than.”
There was hypothesis that the cuts had been tied to automation or AI-related restructuring. Amazon and different tech giants together with Microsoft have trimmed headcount whereas investing closely in AI infrastructure. And software program improvement engineers made up the biggest group of staff affected by the layoffs in Washington state final yr, amid the rise of AI coding instruments.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy additionally instructed staff in June that he anticipated Amazon’s complete company workforce to shrink over time on account of effectivity positive aspects from AI.
However on the corporate’s earnings name with analysts, two days after the layoff announcement in October, Jassy mentioned the cuts weren’t triggered by monetary pressure or synthetic intelligence changing employees. As an alternative, he framed it as a push to remain nimble, and mentioned Amazon’s speedy development over the previous decade led to further layers of administration that slowed decision-making.
Jassy, who succeeded founder Jeff Bezos as CEO in mid-2021, has pushed to scale back administration layers and eradicate paperwork inside the corporate. Amazon’s company headcount tripled between 2017 and 2022, based on The Data, earlier than the corporate adopted a extra cautious hiring strategy.
Amazon’s company workforce numbered round 350,000 folks in early 2023, the final time the corporate supplied a public quantity. At that scale, the discount of 30,000 represents about 8.5% of Amazon’s company workforce. Nevertheless, the quantity is a a lot smaller fraction of its general workforce of 1.57 million folks, which incorporates employees in its warehouses.
The corporate employs round 50,000 company employees within the Seattle area, its major headquarters. There have been 2,303 company staff in Washington state that had been laid off final yr in October.
Amazon stories its newest quarterly earnings on Feb. 5. The corporate’s inventory underperformed relative to the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants final yr. Some analysts predict that Amazon’s cloud unit will assist increase the inventory as AI demand rises.
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