Copyright Variety
Amazon said it will cut approximately 14,000 white-collar jobs, representing about 4% of the total corporate workforce, as it seeks to gain efficiencies — and as it prepares for advances in artificial intelligence that will reduce the need for humans to run the company. Beth Galetti, SVP of people experience and technology at Amazon, wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday that the layoffs “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 and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.” On Monday, Reuters had reported that Amazon would cut as many as 30,000 employees as part of efforts to “pare expenses and compensate for overhiring during the peak demand of the pandemic.” This past June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that efficiency gains from using AI would cause the company to reduce its corporate workforce over the next few years. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” he wrote in an internal memo. “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.” Galetti wrote in her memo Tuesday that “Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well.” For the second quarter of 2025, Amazon reported revenue of $167.7 billion (up 13%) and net income of $18.2 billion (up 35%), both metrics topping Wall Street estimates. According to Galetti, “What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. 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). We’re convicted 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.” In 2026, Galetti wrote, “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.” Amazon is scheduled to report Q3 2025 earnings Thursday, Oct. 30, after the market closes.
