Amazon to lay off 30,000 employees in largest job cut since late 2022: Report

In what may be its largest rounds of job cuts since late 2022, Amazon is set to lay off up to 30,000 corporate employees starting Tuesday in a major cost-cutting move, news agency Reuters reported citing three people familiar with the matter.

The move is reportedly aimed at trimming expenses and correcting the overhiring that occurred during the pandemic’s surge in demand.

While the number 30,000 is a relatively small portion of Amazon’s total 1.55 million-strong workforce, it is a significant 10% share of the firm’s corporate employees, which is around 350,000 in number.

Over the last two years, Amazon has been gradually reducing its staff across several divisions such as including devices, communications, and podcasting. This layoffs beginning on Tuesday will reportedly affect divisions such as human resources, also known as People Experience and Technology or PXT; operations, devices and services; and Amazon Web Services, said the three people familiar with the matter.

They added that managers of the teams which will be impacted by the job cuts were even asked to undergo a training on Monday on how to communicate with the staff once the series of job cuts begins. The notifications of termination will start going out on Tuesday morning, they said.

Amazon spokesperson declined to comment when reached out to, the report said.

While it is uncertain what the scope of this fresh rounds of job cuts would he, the people familiar with the matter pointed that the number could eventually change according to the firm’s financial priorities.

Why are Amazon employees being laid off?

The latest round of job cuts at Amazon comes amid CEO Andy Jassy’s initiative to reduce what he has described as an excess of bureaucracy. He even set up an anonymous line in order to identify inefficiencies, following which, over 450 process changes have happened at the firm.

In June this year, he had hinted at job cuts due to increased use of artificial intelligence tools.

According to Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst, “This latest move signals that Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force…Amazon has also been under pressure in the short-term to offset the long-term investments in building out its AI infrastructure.”

(With inputs from Reuters)