There have been a ton of layoffs in the tech industry over the past couple of years, with companies big and small streamlining their workforces as competition increases and economic pressures bite.
Amazon has been among those cutting jobs, but according to a Reuters report on Monday, it’s still not done. Even more remarkably, the e-commerce giant is about to announce its biggest single layoff plan in the company’s history, with as many as 30,000 people across its corporate workforce set to be given their marching orders starting Tuesday this week, according to people familiar with the matter.
Amazon employs around 1.5 million globally, though most work in logistics. On the corporate side, it has around 350,000 people on its books, so the expected layoffs represent nearly 10% of that part of its team.
Reuters isn’t certain about which departments will be hit hardest by the predicted cuts, but suggested that those working in human resources, devices and services, and operations, among others, could be targeted.
Back in June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees that the increased use of AI would lead to a reduction in the size of its corporate workforce over time.
“As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” Jassy said in the memo. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs.”
The CEO continued: “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
Jassy has already overseen huge corporate layoffs at Amazon, including in late 2022 and 2023 when the company slashed its workforce by about 27,000 people.
Other tech giants — Meta, Google, and Microsoft among them — have also been reducing headcounts, partly due to the adoption of AI and automation as they seek greater efficiency in a rapidly changing economic and technological landscape.
Looking ahead, AI appears to be the biggest threat to corporate positions, especially with the rise of tools like AI agents, which have the ability to complete various tasks efficiently and autonomously, reducing the need for human intervention.
