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Amazon is preparing to slash up to 30,000 corporate jobs starting Tuesday. This significant move is part of the e-commerce and cloud giant's ongoing effort to curb expenses and correct for the rapid overhiring spree witnessed during the peak of the pandemic demand.As per the report by Reuters, the figure of 30,000 positions represents a mere fraction of Amazon’s massive 1.55 million global workforce; these cuts are hitting the corporate ranks directly and deeply. This reduction targets nearly 10% of the company's roughly 350,000 office-based staff, making it a substantial moment of restructuring which is the largest single wave since the company eliminated about 27,000 jobs in late 2022.The process is already underway and intensely felt. Managers underwent mandatory training on communication protocols just this last Monday and employees across the company were scheduled to begin receiving official notifications on Tuesday morning.Crucially, the cuts are not limited to one division but are expected to be broad, reaching into core areas like:These wide-ranging targets emphasise that this is a company-wide initiative driven by efficiency, not just isolated team underperformance.This widespread restructuring is being initiated by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy as part of an aggressive initiative to slash bureaucracy and increase overall efficiency. Jassy has previously stated his intent to reduce the number of managers and streamline processes across the organisation.The drive for efficiency has been bolstered by technology. Earlier this year, Jassy implemented an anonymous complaint line to identify inefficiencies, which reportedly elicited 1,500 responses and led to over 450 process improvements, as per the report by Reuters.Artificial intelligence (AI) is also playing a critical role in the rationale behind the deep cuts. Jassy indicated in June that the company’s increased adoption of AI tools would likely lead to further job reductions by automating routine and repetitive tasks.As reported by Reuters, an eMarketer analyst, Sky Canaves, emphasised this point, noting that the company’s AI progress is likely translating into corporate productivity:"This latest move signals that Amazon is likely realising enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force," said Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst. "Amazon has also been under pressure in the short-term to offset the long-term investments in building out its AI infrastructure."According to two of the people familiar with the matter told Reuters that another surprising factor contributing to the size of the layoff is the failure of Amazon's stringent return-to-office (RTO) policy to generate sufficient voluntary staff departures.Amazon had implemented one of the tech sector's most rigid RTO mandates, requiring employees to be in the office five days a week. The Reuters report suggests that some employees who have failed to comply with the daily office swipe-in requirements, due to distance or other reasons, are being notified that they have voluntarily quit Amazon, forcing their departure without severance pay. This practice allows the company to realise additional cost savings.The restructuring comes as Amazon’s largest profit center, the cloud computing unit AWS, faces a slowdown in growth. AWS reported second-quarter sales of $30.9 billion, a 17.5% increase, but this lagged behind the growth rates of competitors like Microsoft’s Azure (39%) and Alphabet’s Google Cloud (32%). AWS is expected to report a slight slowdown for the third quarter as well.Despite the corporate job cuts, Amazon appears confident in consumer demand, planning to offer 250,000 seasonal jobs to staff its warehouses for the critical holiday selling season, a figure consistent with the prior two years. Following the news, Amazon shares rose 1.2% to $226.97 on Monday. The company is set to report its third-quarter earnings this Thursday.
