Amazon Announces Largest Layoffs in Company History: 14,000 Corporate Jobs Cut as AI Reshapes Workforce Strategy

In a stunning announcement that sent shockwaves through the tech industry, Amazon said it would cut 14,000 corporate staffers this year in a mass layoff aimed at readying the company for wide adoption of AI technology Sky Sports. The layoffs, which began Tuesday morning, represent one of the most significant workforce reductions in Amazon's history and signal a fundamental shift in how the e-commerce giant plans to operate in an AI-powered future. But the company also said it wasn't done with layoffs. "We expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas while also finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains," said Beth Galetti, Amazon's senior vice president of people experience in a memo to employees that the company put on its public blog Sky Sports. Breaking Down the Numbers Amazon is the nation's second-largest private employer, with more than 1.54 million staffers globally as of the end of the second quarter. That figure is primarily made up of its warehouse workforce. It has roughly 350,000 corporate employees Sky Sports. The 14,000 confirmed cuts represent approximately 4% of Amazon's corporate workforce, though Reuters, which on Monday first reported Amazon would lay off staff, said the job cuts could ultimately reach 30,000 Sky Sports. Layoffs will begin Tuesday. Most employees will be given 90 days to look for new roles internally, while people that can't get new jobs at Amazon will be given severance pay and additional benefits Sky Sports. This approach allows affected employees some runway to find alternative positions within the company, though the competitive nature of internal transfers means many will ultimately leave Amazon entirely. Which Divisions Are Affected? The terminations, expected as soon as Tuesday, could affect as many as 30,000 jobs. Amazon.com Inc. plans to cut corporate jobs in several key departments, including logistics, payments, video games and the cloud-computing unit LiveScore. Amazon is preparing to cut as much as 15% of its human resources staff, with additional layoffs likely in other divisions. Two sources told Fortune that Amazon's human resources division—known internally as PXT or the People eXperience Technology team—will be hard-hit, but that other areas of Amazon's core consumer business are also likely to be affected NBC Sports. Amazon's PXT division, which reports to senior vice president Beth Galetti, has more than 10,000 employees worldwide, and includes a large recruiting team, plus technology staff and other traditional HR roles NBC Sports. A 15% reduction in this division alone would eliminate approximately 1,500 HR positions. The cuts also impact: Amazon Web Services (AWS): The company's highly profitable cloud computing division Gaming divisions: Including studios and publishing operations Logistics operations: Corporate roles managing Amazon's vast delivery network Payments division: Teams handling Amazon Pay and financial services Consumer devices: The unit responsible for Echo, Kindle, and other hardware The AI Justification In June, Jassy said in a separate blog post to employees that efficiency gains from artificial intelligence would allow the company to eventually have a reduced human workforce. "As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," he bluntly admitted in a previous note Sky Sports. AI won't just effect change at Amazon, Jassy said. AI "will change how we all work and live," including "billions" of AI agents "across every company and in every imaginable field." However, much of this remains speculative Sky Sports. This represents perhaps the most explicit acknowledgment from a major tech CEO that AI adoption will directly result in workforce reductions. While other executives have danced around the issue, Jassy has been remarkably forthright about AI's impact on human employment at Amazon. Andy Jassy's Cost-Cutting Reputation Jassy, who succeeded Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in the CEO job in 2021, has earned a reputation as a cost-cutter (though to be fair, he inherited a company that many say had become wasteful and bloated in some areas) NBC Sports. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy already oversaw the largest layoffs in company history from late 2022 into 2023, when the company cut at least 27,000 corporate jobs, which accounted for a high-single-digit percentage of the company's office jobs NBC Sports. The current layoffs come on top of those previous cuts, meaning Amazon has now eliminated over 40,000 corporate positions since Jassy took the helm. Galetti said Amazon needs to operate more leanly to achieve CEO Andy Jassy's vision of operating like the world's biggest startup Sky Sports. This "startup mentality" philosophy emphasizes speed, efficiency, and scrappiness—qualities that Jassy believes became diluted as Amazon grew into a trillion-dollar behemoth. The URA System and Management Pressure Amazon executives regularly require managers to hit a certain percentage goal for unregretted attrition, or URA—essentially a percentage of employees that the company would be okay losing, whether through voluntary departures, being "managed out," or through formal layoffs NBC Sports. This controversial internal metric has long been criticized as creating a culture of constant performance pressure and job insecurity. But sources told Fortune that these cuts are being discussed in a different way internally than the typical URA process NBC Sports, suggesting these layoffs represent strategic restructuring rather than routine performance management. The Broader Tech Industry Context The planned layoffs would also represent the biggest job cuts across the tech industry since at least 2020. As of Monday, more than 200 tech companies have laid off approximately 98,000 employees since the start of the year, according to Layoffs.fyi, which monitors job reductions in the tech sector Sky Sports. Microsoft has laid off about 15,000 people so far this year, while Meta last week eliminated roughly 600 jobs within its artificial intelligence unit. Google cut more than 100 design-related roles in its cloud unit earlier this month, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in September the company laid off 4,000 customer support staffers, pointing to its increasing AI adoption as a catalyst behind the workforce reduction. Intel's layoffs this year totaled 22,000 roles, the most of any tech company listed this year by Layoffs.fyi Sky Sports. The steepest year for job cuts in tech came in 2023, as the industry reckoned with soaring inflation and rising interest rates. Close to 1,200 tech companies slashed more than 260,000 jobs, the site said Sky Sports. Analyst Perspectives The company's cuts are the latest in a long line of efforts to make Amazon more efficient and focused, said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, in a note to investors Monday. "Markets across the world are tightening at the same time as underlying costs are rising," Saunders said. "Amazon is not immune to this, and it needs to act if it wants to continue with a good bottom line performance. In some ways, this is a tipping point away from human capital to technological infrastructure" Sky Sports. This analysis captures a crucial shift happening across the tech industry: the transition from viewing employees as the primary value creators to viewing AI systems and automation infrastructure as the core assets. Human workers increasingly support and manage these systems rather than performing the work directly. The Robotics and Automation Expansion Beyond software AI, Amazon is aggressively expanding physical automation. Amazon is expected to replace 600,000 workers with robots by 2033, automating 75% of its operations as a result Football Web Pages. Amazon is also leading the way for alternative delivery measures through its drone systems, and its most recent reveal of its Blue Jay robotic arm system and Project Eluna agentic AI model is further confirmation of its expansion of its robotics and AI capabilities Football Web Pages. The Blue Jay robotic arm system and Project Eluna represent next-generation warehouse automation that can handle increasingly complex tasks previously requiring human judgment and dexterity. As these systems mature, the displacement of warehouse workers—Amazon's largest employee category—could dramatically accelerate. Workforce Development Initiatives: Too Little, Too Late? To dull the blow of the news of Amazon robots replacing future jobs, the company announced a $1 billion investment in its employees last month, with hikes promised to those in the U.S. Football Web Pages. Additionally, the company just announced its Future Ready 2030 program this week, which involves a $2.5 billion commitment to the education of employees to prepare them for the future of work. The project aims to "help 100,000 employees gain new skills by 2025," empowering both Amazon employees and the broader workforce to thrive in a rapidly changing labor market Football Web Pages. While these investments in reskilling sound impressive, critics note the timing seems designed to soften the PR blow of massive layoffs. If Amazon truly believed in retraining its workforce for AI-era jobs, those programs would have been established before announcing layoffs that will eliminate tens of thousands of positions. The Holiday Hiring Paradox While Amazon plans these layoffs of corporate roles, the company announced its usual holiday hiring spree of warehouse staff on Tuesday. This year, the company will hire 250,000 seasonal employees across its U.S. warehouse and logistics networks NBC Sports. This creates a jarring contrast: Amazon simultaneously cutting 14,000+ permanent corporate positions while hiring 250,000 temporary warehouse workers. The message is clear—Amazon values flexible, seasonal labor over permanent corporate employees. These temporary positions come with minimal benefits and no job security beyond the holiday season. Employee Reactions and Morale One employee at Amazon told GeekWire the workforce is on "pins and needles" in anticipation of cuts NBC Sports. This anxiety has been building since Fortune's initial report about HR cuts in mid-October, creating weeks of uncertainty that damages productivity and morale. Amazon is expected to begin informing employees of the layoffs via email Tuesday morning Sky Sports. Learning you've lost your job via email—rather than through in-person meetings—adds insult to injury and reflects the impersonal nature of layoffs at massive tech companies. Contractor and Vendor Impacts Safeway Logistics LLC has filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice with the NC Department of Commerce, stating that the layoffs will occur at the Amazon.com Services LLC facility located at 1302 Enterprise Blvd. in Kinston, North Carolina Wikipedia. According to Safeway Logistics, 72 workers will be laid off, with layoffs expected to begin on November 18, 2025, and all separations completed by November 22, 2025 Wikipedia. This illustrates how Amazon's workforce reductions ripple through the ecosystem of contractors and logistics partners who depend on Amazon's business. Economic and Market Implications Amazon is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. The company said earlier this year it expects to increase capital expenditures to more than $100 billion in 2025, up from $83 billion in 2024, with a majority going toward building out capacity for AI in AWS NBC Sports. This massive capital investment in AI infrastructure—while simultaneously cutting thousands of jobs—reveals Amazon's strategic priorities. The company is essentially trading human capital for technological capital, betting that AI systems will deliver greater long-term value than the employees being displaced. The cuts come as the US job market has showed warning signs for months, especially for young tech workers Sky Sports. Amazon's layoffs compound broader concerns about tech sector employment, particularly for younger workers who entered the industry during the pandemic hiring boom. What This Means for Amazon's Culture Amazon has taken a cautious hiring approach with its corporate workforce, following years of huge headcount growth. The company's corporate headcount tripled between 2017 and 2022 NBC Sports. The current contraction represents a dramatic reversal from the aggressive expansion that characterized Amazon's pre-pandemic and pandemic-era growth strategy. The company that once prided itself on aggressive expansion, innovation, and bold bets is now focused on efficiency, cost reduction, and AI-driven productivity gains. This cultural shift from growth-at-all-costs to lean-and-mean operations will fundamentally change what it means to work at Amazon. Looking Ahead: More Cuts Coming? Now, many employers are looking to harness the power of AI—initially for mundane and repetitive tasks and eventually for more complicated jobs—to reduce the need to maintain the same level of human staffers on their payrolls. Jassy himself is one of them NBC Sports. The CEO fired a bit of a warning shot to his own employees in June, when he encouraged them to welcome this new AI-powered era. "Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company," he wrote in a companywide memo NBC Sports. The clear implication: employees who can't demonstrate AI-related skills or find ways to leverage AI in their work face uncertain futures at Amazon. This creates enormous pressure on remaining employees to constantly justify their value in an AI-augmented workplace. The Human Cost Behind the statistics and strategic rationales are 14,000+ individuals and families facing sudden unemployment. Many of these employees relocated across the country or internationally for Amazon jobs. They bought homes near offices, enrolled children in schools, and built lives around their Amazon careers. For those who've dedicated years to Amazon, often working the punishing hours the company is known for, the layoff email represents a betrayal of the implicit social contract. The 90-day internal job search period offers some hope, but with thousands of employees competing for limited positions, most will ultimately need to find opportunities outside Amazon. Lessons for the Tech Industry Amazon's massive layoffs send several messages to the broader tech industry: AI displacement is real and accelerating: This isn't speculative anymore—major companies are explicitly reducing headcount due to AI capabilities No role is safe: From HR to engineering to logistics, AI-driven automation is coming for white-collar jobs across functions Tech employment volatility is the new normal: The era of stable, long-term tech employment may be ending Companies prioritize profits over people: Efficiency and shareholder returns trump employee loyalty and job security Conclusion Amazon's cuts are part of a broader cost-cutting campaign by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy that began during the Covid-19 pandemic Sky Sports. With 14,000 confirmed job cuts and potentially 30,000 total, Amazon is fundamentally reshaping its workforce for an AI-powered future. Whether this aggressive pursuit of AI-driven efficiency will pay off remains to be seen. What's certain is that thousands of experienced professionals are now searching for new opportunities, and Amazon's culture has been permanently altered. The company that disrupted retail, cloud computing, and countless other industries is now disrupting its own workforce—with consequences that will ripple through the tech sector and broader economy for years to come. For Amazon employees, the message is stark: adapt to AI, help build it, or risk becoming redundant. For the rest of the tech industry, Amazon's actions preview what may become a widespread reality as AI capabilities mature and companies prioritize automation over human labor. The future of work is arriving faster than anyone expected, and it looks far different than the optimistic visions once promised.