Amazon is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs, a figure representing nearly 10% of its approximately 350,000 corporate employees. This reduction, its largest since late 2022, aims to pare expenses and address overhiring during the pandemic's peak demand.
The company previously eliminated around 27,000 positions starting in late 2022. These new job cuts may affect various divisions, including human resources, known as People Experience and Technology or PXT, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services.
Managers of affected teams reportedly underwent training for communicating with staff. Email notifications for impacted employees are set to begin.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is leading an initiative to reduce what he described as excessive bureaucracy, including a reduction in manager roles. Jassy installed an anonymous complaint line to identify inefficiencies, which has since elicited about 1,500 responses and over 450 process changes.
Jassy previously stated that increased use of artificial intelligence tools would likely lead to further job cuts. These reductions are expected through the automation of repetitive, routine tasks.
The full extent of this round of job cuts was not immediately clear, with sources indicating the number could change as Amazon's financial priorities shift. Reports previously suggested the human resources division might face a cut of roughly 15%.
A program implemented to bring employees back to the office five days per week reportedly failed to generate sufficient attrition. Some employees not swiping in daily, due to distance from corporate offices or other reasons, are reportedly being told they have voluntarily quit Amazon and will leave without severance.
Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking technology job cuts, estimated about 98,000 jobs have been lost in the tech sector through the current period, across 216 companies. For all of 2024, the total figure was 153,000.
Amazon Web Services, Amazon's largest profit centre, reported second-quarter sales of USD 30.9 billion, a 17.5% increase. This was below gains for competitors, with Microsoft's Azure increasing by 39% and Alphabet's Google Cloud by 32%.
Estimates suggest AWS will have boosted third-quarter sales by about 18% to USD 32 billion, a slight slowdown from the 19% increase reported in the prior year. AWS was recently affected by a roughly 15-hour internet outage last week that impacted many of the most popular online services, such as Snapchat and Venmo.
Amazon anticipates a busy holiday selling season, planning to offer 250,000 seasonal jobs to staff warehouses and other needs. This number remains consistent with the prior two years.
The company also announced a reorganisation of a segment within its PXT unit focusing on diversity initiatives. These changes primarily involved promoting personnel to new roles within the organisation.
Amazon plans to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs, representing nearly 10% of its corporate workforce.
This is the company's largest job reduction since late 2022, driven by expense reduction and overhiring during the pandemic.
Divisions like human resources, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services may be affected.
Source: REUTERS
