Amazon is reportedly preparing to cut thousands more jobs as part of a major restructuring driven by artificial intelligence and internal restructuring.
The world’s largest retailer is expected to announce a second round of layoffs as early as next week, after cutting 14,000 employees in October. The latest cuts are expected to be on a similar scale and bring Amazon closer to its longer-term goal of cutting around 30,000 jobs.
The company, founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, who remains chairman and largest individual shareholder, employs around 1.58 million people worldwide. While the planned cuts represent only a small portion of the total workforce, they amount to nearly 10 percent of Amazon’s corporate employees.
According to Reuters, the cuts are expected to impact teams at Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video and the company’s human resources department, known internally as People Experience and Technology. Other business areas could also be affected.
Amazon previously linked the job cuts in October to its rapid adoption of AI, telling employees in an internal memo that the technology represented the most significant change since the advent of the internet and enabled companies to innovate at unprecedented speed.
However, Andy Jassy later downplayed the idea that the layoffs were primarily due to cost pressures or AI alone. During the third-quarter earnings call, Jassy said the cuts were more about organizational design.
“It’s culture,” he told analysts. “You end up with a lot more people than before, and you end up with a lot more shifts.”
Jassy has previously warned that Amazon’s corporate workforce would shrink over time as efficiency gains brought about by AI would reduce the need for certain roles. Like many large technology companies, Amazon is increasingly using AI to write software code and deploys so-called AI agents to automate routine tasks.
The company unveiled a new generation of AI models at its annual Amazon Web Services conference in December, underscoring how important the technology has become to its future strategy.
If confirmed, the latest cuts would be the largest layoffs in Amazon’s three-decade history. The company previously cut around 27,000 jobs in 2022 to adapt to slowing growth after the pandemic boom.
Employees affected by the October layoffs remained on the payroll for 90 days, during which time they could apply for internal positions or seek work elsewhere. That deadline expires on Monday, reinforcing expectations that a new wave of announcements is imminent.
The move highlights how even the biggest tech companies are reshaping their workforces as AI transforms how corporate functions operate – raising new questions about the long-term impact of automation on employee employment.
