Amazon set to cut 14,000 jobs next week in major corporate shake-up: reports
Amazon is preparing to lay off around 14,000 employees by next week as part of a broader plan to eliminate nearly 30,000 corporate roles, according to reports quoting people familiar with the development. While the total number of job cuts represents only a small fraction of Amazon’s global workforce of about 1.58 million employees, the move is significant because it is expected to impact close to 10 percent of the company’s corporate staff.
The majority of Amazon’s employees work in fulfilment centres, warehouses and delivery operations, which are not expected to be materially affected by this round of reductions.
The planned layoffs mark one of the largest white-collar workforce reductions in Amazon’s history and reflect a continuation of cost-cutting and organisational restructuring efforts that began last year. The company had already reduced its corporate headcount in earlier phases, and the upcoming cuts are seen as the second and more decisive step in reshaping its office-based workforce, as reported by Reuters. The affected roles are expected to span multiple teams, including technology, human resources and business support functions, though Amazon has not publicly confirmed the specific departments involved.
Amazon’s leadership has repeatedly signalled the need to streamline decision-making, reduce layers of management and improve operational efficiency after years of rapid expansion. During the pandemic and the immediate post-pandemic period, the company hired aggressively to meet surging demand for e-commerce, cloud services and digital entertainment. As growth normalised and costs rose, management began reassessing staffing levels, particularly in corporate functions where overlapping roles and slower decision cycles were seen as hindering agility.
A key backdrop to the latest layoffs is the increasing use of automation and artificial intelligence across Amazon’s businesses. While the company has not officially stated that AI is the direct cause of job losses, it has acknowledged that new technologies are changing how work is done and reducing the need for certain administrative and managerial tasks. This mirrors a broader trend across the global technology sector, where companies are recalibrating workforce needs in response to productivity gains from automation and more cautious growth outlooks.
Despite the scale of the planned cuts, Amazon’s core operations, especially its fulfilment centres and logistics network, remain central to its business model and continue to employ the vast majority of its workforce. The company’s heavy reliance on frontline workers means that even large corporate layoffs have a limited impact on overall employment numbers, though they can have a pronounced effect on morale and talent retention within office-based teams.
From a financial and strategic perspective, the job reductions are likely aimed at tightening cost controls and improving margins at a time when investors are closely watching profitability and efficiency. Cutting thousands of corporate roles can generate substantial savings over time, but it also raises questions about how Amazon balances leaner operations with its long-term ambitions in areas such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, digital media and new consumer services.
For employees, the announcement adds to ongoing uncertainty within the technology sector, which has seen widespread layoffs over the past two years. Large-scale corporate job cuts at a company as influential as Amazon can have ripple effects across the broader labour market, influencing hiring sentiment, wage expectations and career mobility in the tech industry.
Overall, Amazon’s plan to lay off 14,000 employees by next week underscores a decisive shift from expansion to consolidation. While the cuts affect a relatively small share of its total workforce, they highlight a deeper transformation in how the company is structured and how it prepares for a future shaped by slower growth, tighter costs and increasing reliance on automation.