Amazon will lay off about 14,000 corporate employees, roughly 4% of its white-collar workforce, as it works to streamline operations and shift resources to artificial intelligence.
In a note Tuesday, HR chief Beth Galetti said the company aims to “reduce bureaucracy, remove layers, and shift resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”
Amazon expanded rapidly during the pandemic and has faced investor pressure to rein in costs. The company reported softer-than-expected AI gains in July, trailing rivals including Microsoft, even as it remains a dominant cloud provider.
The layoffs come ahead of Amazon’s earnings report Thursday and follow a major AWS outage last week that disrupted Venmo, Reddit, Roblox and Duolingo.
In June, CEO Andy Jassy told employees that widespread use of generative AI would bring efficiency gains: “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today … we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce.”
News reports have suggested cuts could ultimately reach as many as 30,000 corporate roles across HR, cloud and other divisions.
The move follows other corporate trims in retail: Starbucks cut nearly 2,000 corporate jobs in a turnaround effort, and Target said last week it will eliminate 1,800 corporate positions amid prolonged sales weakness.
