Amazon eliminates 14,000 jobs in companies

Amazon said Tuesday it plans to cut the company’s workforce by 14,000 jobs as it seeks to reduce bureaucracy, remove layers and invest more in its artificial intelligence strategy.

This marks the second-largest job cuts at the e-commerce giant since it cut 22,000 jobs in 2022. Amazon had nearly 1.2 million employees as of October 31, 2024, with more than 360,000 of them in its corporate division, in management, sales and executive roles.

In a memo shared with employees, Beth Galletti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people and technology experience, wrote that the move aims to make the company “stronger” by shifting resources to invest in its “biggest bets.”

Galletti acknowledged that the decision would be questionable in light of the company’s good performance, but said the layoffs were necessary because “the world is changing rapidly.”

“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we have seen since the Internet, and is enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and entirely new ones). We are condemned. [sic] We need to be more agile [sic]“With fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business,” she wrote.

The layoffs come at a time when Amazon is investing heavily in technology infrastructure to build more computing power to deliver artificial intelligence services.

In June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo to employees that the company would need fewer employees as it continued to roll out more AI agents. “As more generative AI and agents are introduced, this should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It is difficult to know exactly where this will end up over time, but in the next few years, we expect this to reduce the overall company workforce as we get efficiency gains from using intelligence Artificial technology is widespread throughout the company.

This focus is clearly visible if you take into account the company’s spending on technology infrastructure. Amazon said it spent $55.6 billion in the first half of its current fiscal year primarily on technology infrastructure to support the growth of its cloud services business, Amazon Web Services, according to its quarterly report.

The company’s revenue rose 13% to $167.7 billion in the second quarter compared to the previous year. AWS accounted for 18% of total net sales.

Reuters reported on Monday that the company plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs in human resources, hardware, services, operations and other departments.

The company has made smaller job cuts across different divisions. In January, Amazon cut a small number of jobs in its communications and sustainability divisions.

Amazon said it is offering most affected employees 90 days to search for a new role internally, and recruiters will prioritize internal candidates for new roles within the company. It will also offer severance packages, outplacement services, health insurance benefits and more to those who cannot move internally.

In 2026, the company will continue to remove layers and “achieve efficiency gains” while hiring in key areas, Galletti wrote.