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Amazon is planning to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs from this week, according to reports. The tech giant is reportedly preparing to reverse its hiring spree from during the peak of the pandemic, impacting almost a tenth of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate workforce. Amazon boss Andy Jassy has previously warned workers that a number of jobs in the business could be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). He said in June this year that the increased use of generative AI and AI agents, autonomous AI software systems, will reduce the size of its corporate workforce in the coming years. Amazon is expected to target divisions globally including human resources, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to reports from Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. AWS is the world’s largest cloud computing provider and offers a wide variety of services, including storage, databases, machine learning, and security tools. Disruption to AWS led to outages across a wide range of internet services around the world last week, including HMRC and several banks in the UK. Sources told the publications that the plans are part of efforts to cut costs and undo the firm’s major recruitment drive during the height of the pandemic when shoppers shifted their habits online. Amazon employs more than 1.5 million staff in total, with the majority in warehouse roles around the world. The company employs around 75,000 people in the UK. It has been trimming roles across the business in recent years, with cuts affecting divisions such as devices, communications and podcasting. In the UK, it revealed plans to shut all its Amazon Fresh grocery stores last month, putting up to 250 jobs at risk. In a note to employees in June, Jassy said: “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.” Amazon has been contacted for comment.
