By: Sunday Ameh
In what is shaping up to be one of the largest corporate layoffs in recent years, global e-commerce giant Amazon is reportedly planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs beginning Tuesday — part of a sweeping effort to reduce costs, restructure operations, and capitalize on advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that have boosted automation across departments.
According to multiple sources familiar with the development, the job cuts — representing nearly 10% of Amazon’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees — will affect several key divisions, including Human Resources (People Experience and Technology or PXT), Operations, Devices and Services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The move marks the company’s most significant downsizing since late 2022, when Amazon laid off around 27,000 employees amid a broader global tech downturn.
Managers in the affected departments were reportedly briefed on Monday and trained on how to communicate the layoffs to staff ahead of email notifications scheduled to begin Tuesday morning.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been on a mission to streamline operations, eliminate “excess bureaucracy,” and cut management layers that he said were slowing decision-making within the company.
Jassy also introduced an anonymous internal complaint system that allowed employees to flag inefficiencies — a move that reportedly generated over 1,500 submissions, leading to more than 450 process changes.
Industry analysts believe the latest layoffs signal that Amazon is beginning to realize substantial AI-driven productivity gains, allowing the company to automate repetitive corporate tasks and reduce workforce overlap.
“This latest move signals that Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force,” said Sky Canaves, an analyst at eMarketer.
Amazon, like other major tech firms, has invested heavily in AI infrastructure — a costly endeavor that now puts pressure on executives to deliver short-term cost savings to offset long-term investments.
Two insiders also revealed that Amazon’s strict five-day in-office policy, introduced earlier this year, failed to produce the voluntary resignations company leaders had anticipated. Consequently, some remote employees who have not returned to physical offices are being classified as having “voluntarily quit”, a move that allows Amazon to avoid paying severance packages.
The PXT (HR) division is among the hardest hit, with reports suggesting cuts of up to 15% in that department alone. A leaked internal memo last week also indicated that Amazon had reorganized parts of its diversity-focused HR segment — promoting some employees while consolidating others under new roles.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, AWS, is reportedly under pressure after weaker-than-expected growth. The division recorded $30.9 billion in second-quarter sales — up 17.5% — but still lagging behind Microsoft Azure’s 39% growth and Google Cloud’s 32%.
AWS also suffered a 15-hour service outage last week that disrupted major online platforms including Snapchat and Venmo.
According to data from Layoffs.fyi, at least 216 tech companies have already eliminated about 98,000 jobs in 2025, following 153,000 layoffs in 2024, underscoring an industry-wide correction driven by automation and shifting economic priorities.
Despite the corporate cuts, Amazon says it will still hire 250,000 seasonal workers — the same number as last year — to handle its upcoming holiday shopping surge across warehouses and logistics networks.
Amazon’s stock rose 1.2% to $226.97 on Monday, ahead of its third-quarter earnings report expected on Thursday.
If confirmed, the cuts would represent Amazon’s largest corporate downsizing since the pandemic, signaling the tech giant’s transition from its post-COVID hiring boom to a new era defined by AI efficiency, austerity, and tighter management controls.
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