As Amazon started cutting 14,000 jobs, employees were informed that they had been relieved—through text messages.

According to a report by Business Insider, the e-commerce giant sent two messages on Tuesday to inform employees that their jobs had been terminated.

One of the two texts sent by Amazon to employees urged them to check their personal or official emails before reporting to work.

The second text, meanwhile, directed employees to call a help desk in case they hadn’t received “an email message about your role”.

According to people familiar with the matter, this rather unorthodox strategy of laying off employees was to ensure that people did not show up to work to find that their access badges no longer functioned.

With most tech firm offices having badge-based access, this problem of terminated employees showing up to work, only to find their badges didn’t work, had become a common occurrence during mass layoffs at Google and Tesla.

After Reuters initially reported that Amazon was slated to cut 30,000 jobs, the Jeff Bezos-led firm clarified that 14,000 job cuts were indeed underway.

“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets,” Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti said in a blog post on Tuesday.

In an internal email accessed by BI, the Amazon HR chief also said that laid off employees would be supported with full pay and benefits for 90 days after being relieved.

“We didn’t make these decisions lightly, and we’re committed to supporting you throughout this transition, which will include a non-working period with full pay and benefits (as applicable), an offer of a severance package, transitional benefits as applicable by country, and access to several skills trainings as well as external job placement support,” the email read.

Notably, the layoffs came months after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned about AI taking jobs in the e-commerce giant.

Building on Jassy’s warning, Galetti has also hinted of more layoffs in the near future.

“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before,” the Amazon HR chief said.

“Looking ahead to 2026, as Andy talked about earlier this year, we expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas while also finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains,” Galetti added.

The last major round of company-wide layoffs at Amazon took place three years ago, and was implemented over five months.

As Amazon started cutting 14,000 jobs, employees were informed that they had been relieved—through text messages.

According to a report by Business Insider, the e-commerce giant sent two messages on Tuesday to inform employees that their jobs had been terminated.

One of the two texts sent by Amazon to employees urged them to check their personal or official emails before reporting to work.

The second text, meanwhile, directed employees to call a help desk in case they hadn’t received “an email message about your role”.

According to people familiar with the matter, this rather unorthodox strategy of laying off employees was to ensure that people did not show up to work to find that their access badges no longer functioned.

With most tech firm offices having badge-based access, this problem of terminated employees showing up to work, only to find their badges didn’t work, had become a common occurrence during mass layoffs at Google and Tesla.

After Reuters initially reported that Amazon was slated to cut 30,000 jobs, the Jeff Bezos-led firm clarified that 14,000 job cuts were indeed underway.

“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets,” Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti said in a blog post on Tuesday.

In an internal email accessed by BI, the Amazon HR chief also said that laid off employees would be supported with full pay and benefits for 90 days after being relieved.

“We didn’t make these decisions lightly, and we’re committed to supporting you throughout this transition, which will include a non-working period with full pay and benefits (as applicable), an offer of a severance package, transitional benefits as applicable by country, and access to several skills trainings as well as external job placement support,” the email read.

Notably, the layoffs came months after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned about AI taking jobs in the e-commerce giant.

Building on Jassy’s warning, Galetti has also hinted of more layoffs in the near future.

“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before,” the Amazon HR chief said.

“Looking ahead to 2026, as Andy talked about earlier this year, we expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas while also finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains,” Galetti added.

The last major round of company-wide layoffs at Amazon took place three years ago, and was implemented over five months.