Amazon is preparing to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs, in what is expected to be the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history.
The cuts, set to begin on Tuesday, 28 October 2025, are part of an effort to reduce costs and restructure several departments within the company.
According to Reuters, the layoffs will affect roughly 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce — about 30,000 of its 350,000 office-based employees — while representing a small portion of its total workforce of 1.55 million.
The move follows several smaller rounds of job cuts over the past two years across divisions such as devices, communications, and human resources.
The cuts are expected to impact multiple divisions, including the People Experience and Technology (PXT) department — Amazon’s human resources arm — as well as operations, services, and its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Managers from the affected departments were reportedly briefed on Monday and trained on how to communicate the layoffs before email notifications were scheduled to go out Tuesday morning.
The job reductions come as CEO Andy Jassy continues a company-wide initiative to simplify operations and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy. Jassy has also encouraged greater integration of artificial intelligence tools to automate routine administrative and logistical tasks.
He said in June that “the increased use of AI will likely lead to further job cuts,” noting that automation could improve efficiency across teams that manage data, scheduling, and customer support.
Industry analysts believe this new round of layoffs reflects Amazon’s growing reliance on AI to replace repetitive roles.
Sky Canaves, an analyst at eMarketer, told Reuters that “Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force.”
The company’s recent push to bring employees back to offices five days a week is another factor contributing to the layoffs.
Sources told Reuters that some workers who did not comply with the return-to-office policy were considered to have “voluntarily resigned,” allowing the company to reduce headcount without offering severance packages.
Amazon’s cloud computing division, AWS, remains its most profitable business segment but has recently shown slower growth compared to competitors.
In the second quarter, AWS revenue rose 17.5% to $30.9 billion, trailing behind Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud, which reported growth rates of 39% and 32%, respectively.
AWS also experienced a 15-hour outage earlier this month that disrupted several major online services, including Snapchat and Venmo.
Despite the internal restructuring, Amazon is preparing for another strong holiday shopping season and plans to hire about 250,000 seasonal workers to meet demand in its warehouses and delivery network.
Amazon’s stock rose 1.2% to $226.97 following the reports, as investors appeared to view the job cuts as a sign of fiscal discipline. The company will release its third-quarter earnings later this week.
The planned layoffs represent the most extensive workforce reduction since 2022, when Amazon eliminated about 27,000 jobs following a surge in hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest cuts reflect both the long-term impact of automation and the short-term financial pressures facing one of the world’s largest technology companies.
