Another wave of job cuts is hitting Amazon’s corporate ranks as the company reshapes itself for what it says is a faster, more AI-driven future.
Amazon confirmed Wednesday that it plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate roles, marking the second major round of layoffs since October. The company said the decision is part of a broader internal reset focused on simplifying how it operates while redirecting resources toward artificial intelligence.
In a blog post announcing the cuts, Amazon said the layoffs are meant to “strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” The move lines up with the company’s growing push to spend aggressively on AI tools and large-scale data center expansion.
These reductions follow October’s layoffs, when roughly 14,000 corporate employees were let go. At that time, Amazon made it clear that more cuts could follow in 2026 as leadership identified “additional places we can remove layers.”
Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, addressed concerns about whether layoffs would become routine. “That’s not our plan,” Galetti wrote. “But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.”
Some employees felt the impact even earlier this week. On Tuesday, workers in Amazon’s cloud division received an email, reportedly sent in error, that referenced “organizational changes” and acknowledged that “impacted colleagues” had already been notified.
Amazon employed about 1.58 million people as of the end of the third quarter, with most working in warehouses and logistics. Since October, roughly 30,000 corporate and tech roles have been cut, about 10 percent of that workforce.
CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly linked workforce reductions to efficiency gains from AI. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said last year, signaling that this shift is far from over.
