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It is no secret that Amazon has been drastically changing its massive global workforce of roughly 1.5 million to better compete in the tech and online retail industries. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy even said in his annual letter to shareholders, which was unveiled in April, that he wants the company to “operate like the world’s largest startup.” To accomplish this goal, he said Amazon needs to complete tasks at a faster pace and weed out bureaucracy from its workplace culture. To follow this new initiative, Amazon has made significant changes to its workforce throughout the year, including job cuts. Timeline of Amazon’s 2025 workforce changes In January, Amazon ordered its corporate workforce to return to working in offices five days a week to boost collaboration, brainstorming, and innovation. Also in January, Amazon laid off dozens of employees in its communications department. In May, roughly 100 employees in Amazon’s devices and services unit, which develops devices such as Ring, Echo smart speakers, and Alexa, were laid off. By July, the online retail giant had laid off hundreds of workers in its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS). In August, Amazon’s podcast division Wondery pink-slipped about 100 employees. Amazon cuts thousands of jobs in latest move Now, Amazon has announced another round of layoffs right before the holidays, and this time, it’s massive. The online retail giant is giving 14,000 corporate employees the boot, impacting multiple departments. The layoffs were revealed in a memo to employees on Oct. 29. In the email, Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said the layoffs are part of the company’s goal of “reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources” to better serve its investments and customers. “We’re working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted, including offering most employees 90 days to look for a new role internally (the timing will vary some based on local laws), and our recruiting teams will prioritize internal candidates to help as many people as possible find new roles within Amazon,” said Galetti. “For our teammates who are unable to find a new role at Amazon or who choose not to look for one, we’ll offer them transition support including severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits, and more.” According to a recent report from Business Insider, over 78% of the job roles impacted by Amazon’s layoffs were held by managers. More than 80% of the employees worked in Amazon’s retail business, in departments such as human resources, e-commerce, and logistics. Amazon employees who worked in payments, devices, advertising, customer behavior analytics, and Fire TV were also impacted by the job cuts. Even employees in Amazon’s audiobook and podcast division, Audible, were laid off. Why Amazon is really laying off employees In the memo, Galetti said that even though Amazon is performing well, it is conducting layoffs because the world is “changing quickly” due to artificial intelligence. “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 (in existing market segments and altogether new ones),” said Galetti. “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.” The move from Amazon comes after it revealed during an earnings call in February that it plans to increase its capital expenditures (funds used to acquire or upgrade the company’s fixed assets) to $100 billion this year, primarily driven by AI investments. In a memo sent to employees in June, Jassy warned that AI will eventually replace jobs at the company because it will “automate a lot of tasks that consume our time.” “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” said Jassy. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.” Americans are worried about AI replacing jobs While Amazon and other companies across the country rely on AI to simplify operations, many employees nationwide are worried about this growing trend. A YouGov survey from last year found that more than one-third of U.S. workers are concerned that AI will result in job loss or fewer work hours. Amid this anxiety, about 218 tech companies have reduced their workforces this year, resulting in over 112,700 employees losing their jobs, according to recent data from Layoffs.fyi. More Labor: Intel quietly pulls back major employee commitment amid troubles Google quietly doubles down on a controversial workplace trend Samsung cracks down on an alarming workplace problem A recent survey from Resume.org found that nearly three in 10 companies have replaced jobs with AI this year, and 37% expect to replace roles with AI by the end of 2026. “AI adoption is going to reshape the job market more dramatically over the next 18 to 24 months than we’ve seen in decades,” said Kara Dennison, head of career advising at Resume.org, in the survey. “We’ll see continued displacement of routine and process-driven roles as well as entirely new categories of work centered on AI oversight, data ethics, prompt engineering, and human-AI collaboration. Technical skills alone won’t be enough; adaptability, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence will become the defining differentiators for talent.”
