Amazon set to cut thousands of corporate jobs next week as part of workforce reduction plan

New Delhi: Amazon is planning a second round of corporate job reductions next week, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce its workforce by roughly 30,000 positions, according to Reuters.

In October, the company cut around 14,000 white-collar roles, approximately half of the total target first reported by Reuters. The upcoming round is expected to affect a similar number of positions and could start as early as Tuesday.

The job cuts are likely to impact units including Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video, and the human resources division, known internally as People Experience and Technology, though the full details of the layoffs remain unclear and may change.

The October reductions were initially linked to the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence, with internal communications describing the technology as transformative and enabling companies to innovate faster.

However, CEO Andy Jassy later clarified during the company’s third-quarter earnings call that the layoffs were not primarily financially or AI-driven. He explained that the reductions were related to “culture,” noting that the company had become too bureaucratic, with an excess of staff and organisational layers.

Earlier in 2025, Jassy had indicated that Amazon’s corporate workforce could shrink over time as AI efficiencies are realised. Companies are increasingly deploying AI to automate routine tasks and write software code, seeking to reduce costs and reliance on human labour. Amazon highlighted its latest AI developments during its annual AWS cloud computing conference in December.

The 30,000 positions represent a small fraction of Amazon’s total workforce of 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10% of its corporate staff. The majority of Amazon employees work in fulfilment centres and warehouses.

If implemented, these layoffs would constitute the largest in Amazon’s 30-year history, surpassing the 27,000 positions cut in 2022. Workers affected in October were given 90 days on the payroll to apply for internal roles or seek other employment, with that period concluding on Monday.