It is a dark week for Amazon’s corporate employees worldwide. In the early hours of today, October 28, the Reuters news agency exclusively reported—without confirmation from official sources—that the company led by Jeff Bezos would initiate a wave of layoffs that could affect up to 30,000 office employees responsible for managing and coordinating the different business units of the company. This number does not include warehouse, logistics center, or delivery personnel.
Now, the multinational company has clarified the situation: indeed, there will be cutbacks, but it will be “only” 14,000 employees. The aim is to reduce bureaucracy. “We need a more agile organization, with fewer layers and greater accountability, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and our business,” explains Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, in a statement the company sent this morning to its employees.
This represents the second most aggressive reduction carried out by the tech giant since 2022, when it began a wave of layoffs that extended into 2023, affecting more than 27,000 people.
At the same time, Amazon is working on a plan to reduce costs and offset the overhiring that took place during the pandemic, a period in which orders surged, creating a spike in demand that ultimately proved unsustainable over time.
Although the layoffs will affect a relatively small percentage of Amazon’s total workforce, this reduction will have a significant impact on the company. Staff in areas such as Human Resources, Operations, Devices and Services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) could be affected, impacting various divisions that are pillars of the organization.
In the aforementioned letter, Galetti expresses gratitude to her team for their efforts thus far to strengthen their organizations by reducing layers, increasing accountability, and helping to decrease bureaucracy. “We are already seeing results: teams are moving faster, and many Amazon employees feel greater ownership,” says the executive, adding that “The reductions we are sharing today are a continuation of this work to further strengthen ourselves, streamlining bureaucracy even more, eliminating layers, and redirecting resources to ensure we are investing in our greatest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”
In this regard, the company has already implemented initiatives such as reducing the number of managers and introducing a confidential complaint line to identify operational inefficiencies, which has led to more than 450 process changes. Additionally, automation driven by artificial intelligence will be a decisive factor in workforce reduction in the coming years.
The company asserts that the increasing use of AI in repetitive operational areas is contributing to higher productivity, thus decreasing the need for human workers to perform routine tasks. Nevertheless, Amazon has also announced that it will hire more than 250,000 temporary employees in its warehouses to reinforce operations for the upcoming holiday shopping season.
The company also announced that “Looking ahead to 2026, we expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas, while also identifying additional opportunities to eliminate layers, increase ownership, and achieve efficiencies.”
As for employees who will lose their jobs, Galetti explains that most will be given 90 days to seek another position within the company: “To those colleagues who cannot find a new position at Amazon or choose not to pursue one, we will provide transition support, including severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits, and more,” she adds.
This adjustment reflects Amazon’s transition towards greater automation. As artificial intelligence takes on a more prominent role in the company’s operations, it is expected that repetitive tasks will increasingly be managed by automated systems.
“This generation of AI is the most transformational technology we have seen since the Internet, enabling businesses to innovate much faster than ever before (in both existing market segments and entirely new ones). We are convinced that we need a more agile organization, with fewer layers and greater accountability, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and our business,” the letter states.
The shift in focus extends to logistics operations, where Amazon plans for a substantial percentage of ultra-fast delivery processes to be managed without human intervention. The company has already expressed interest in replacing workers with robots in various facilities, marking a step towards the mechanization of the industry. In fact, it already has one million robots operating in its warehouses and distribution centers worldwide.
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