Amazon to cut about 16,000 corporate roles in second round

Amazon said it would eliminate roughly 16,000 corporate roles worldwide in a second major round of white-collar cuts, bringing the total reductions since October to about 30,000. Company leaders framed the move as part of a broader effort to streamline the organization and accelerate investments in efficiency technologies.

Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president for People Experience & Technology, described the reductions as designed to “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” She added that some teams will “continue to make adjustments as appropriate,” leaving open the possibility of further restructuring. The cuts follow an October round that trimmed about 14,000 corporate jobs and mark Amazon’s largest white-collar shakeup since the 2023 reductions.

Amazon said U.S.-based staff who lose their roles will have 90 days to seek other positions inside the company. Employees who do not secure internal transfers will be offered severance pay, outplacement services and continued health insurance benefits, company communications said. The firm did not disclose a detailed breakdown by business unit or geography, and it declined to say how many of the affected employees are based in the greater Seattle area.

Company leaders have publicly tied the staffing changes to a push to deploy generative artificial intelligence and other productivity tools. Andy Jassy has previously signaled that AI will transform corporate work at the company in the coming years, and executives have sought to reorient teams around new technology priorities while trimming roles deemed duplicative or bureaucratic.

Alongside the job reductions, Amazon said it would wind down remaining physical retail experiments, including closing certain Amazon Fresh grocery stores and Amazon Go markets, and retire the Amazon One palm-scanning payment system. The company did not directly link those operational moves to the layoffs in its public statements.

The scale of the cuts carries local economic implications, especially in Seattle, where Amazon’s corporate campus accounts for concentrated daytime spending. Small-business owners voiced immediate concerns. Sam Dangol, owner of Kathmandu MoMoCha, said his midday lunch traffic depends heavily on Amazon workers: “So definitely lunchtime is Amazon staff,” and “So we have to be ready for two hours of rush.” An Amazon employee who said his team was not affected, Morris Brown, reacted to the announcement with dismay: “It is a lot. It is a lot.” Downtown business leaders warned the reductions could ripple through retail, restaurants and service providers that rely on corporate foot traffic.

Internally, the announcement followed a misstep that unsettled some staff: an apparent erroneous email acknowledging “organizational changes” was sent to certain cloud unit employees before company-wide notifications, according to internal accounts. That incident highlighted the challenges large employers face when executing broad personnel moves across complex global operations.

Amazon employs about 1.58 million people worldwide, most in fulfillment centers and warehouses. While the 30,000 corporate cuts are a small share of the company’s total workforce, they amount to a significant portion of Amazon’s white-collar ranks and reflect an industrywide shift to align post-pandemic staffing with longer-term technology and cost priorities. Company officials said they will continue to adjust staffing and structure as they pursue those goals.