Amazon says it will lay off 16,000 employees

Amazon said today it will cut 16,000 jobs across the company. The reduction comes after the e-commerce company laid off 14,000 people in October.

In a letter to employees, Beth Galletti, senior vice president of human experience and technology, said these layoffs were done to “reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy.” She pointed out that the reason for the second round of mass layoffs within three months is that many teams in the company have not finished restructuring.

Galletti did not outright deny that there could be more job cuts at the company, but he said the company is not trying to create a pattern of large layoffs every few months.

“Some of you may be wondering if this is the beginning of a new cadence — where we announce widespread cuts every few months. This is not our plan. But as we have always done, each team will continue to evaluate ownership, speed and ability to innovate for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate,” she said in a blog post.

In October, Amazon said it had 1.57 million employees, and had posted single-digit growth in the past five quarters before that, according to the company’s third-quarter 2025 filings. The company is scheduled to publish fourth-quarter 2025 results next week.

In her latest blog post, Galletti said that despite these job cuts, the company will continue to hire in strategic areas.

Last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote a memo in which he said that because of artificial intelligence, the company would need fewer people “to do some of the jobs done today, and more people to do other types of jobs.” He also noted that the company’s workforce will see a decline in the next few years.

Amazon sent the wrong meeting invitation to several AWS employees that addressed job cuts and the “Project Dawn” initiative, confusing workers, Business Insider reported. The invitation was rescinded shortly after.

Amazon said Tuesday it will close its brick-and-mortar Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh Stores to focus on increasing same-day grocery delivery capacity. The company instead plans to expand Whole Foods and open 100 new stores over the next few years.