Amazon is proceeding with a significant workforce restructuring, revealing that it will cut around 14,000 corporate positions as part of a broader initiative aimed at becoming more agile and AI-focused. This strategy reflects Amazon’s goal to operate with a leaner structure, involving fewer management layers and increased ownership, as noted by Beth Galetti, senior vice-president of People Experience & Technology. “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet,” she stated. “It’s allowing companies to innovate much more rapidly than before in both established markets and entirely new areas…
We believe that a leaner organization with fewer layers and more ownership is essential for us to respond swiftly to our customers and businesses.” While 14,000 jobs are confirmed as the target, the total could extend to 30,000 as Amazon continues its transformation. The layoffs will affect various departments, including cloud computing, grocery, video games, human resources, advertising, sustainability, communications, and devices. This reduction marks one of the largest cuts in the company’s white-collar workforce to date and highlights how technology-oriented businesses are adjusting their staffing models in response to the rise of artificial intelligence. Companies across various sectors, from technology to finance, are re-evaluating their workforce strategies—reducing roles even in AI teams while increasing hiring in other areas.
For instance, Meta Platforms recently laid off around 600 employees from its AI division, Microsoft has cut over 15,000 jobs this year, and Google has quietly reduced about 35% of its mid-level management positions. According to CEO Andy Jassy, Amazon acknowledges that “we will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.” These recent cuts follow a phase of aggressive hiring, during which Amazon added tens of thousands of roles in shopping, logistics, and cloud services due to the pandemic surge. However, the company is now shifting its emphasis. From 2022 to 2023, Amazon eliminated approximately 27,000 positions, primarily in non-corporate segments.
The current cuts specifically target about 4% of its roughly 350,000 global corporate and tech employees. Despite these extensive job reductions, Amazon’s total workforce remains above 1.54 million, primarily in warehouses and logistics. Nevertheless, the company continues to invest heavily, planning to allocate about $118 billion this year towards AI development and cloud infrastructure, highlighting the importance of its strategic pivot and the competitive stakes against rivals like Microsoft and Google. Concurrently, Jassy is working to reshape Amazon’s corporate culture, advocating for a “world’s largest start-up” mindset and reinstating a five-day office workweek to enhance decision-making and streamline management structures.
Despite the downsizing in corporate jobs, Amazon is actively hiring for its fulfillment and transportation sectors, especially in anticipation of the busy holiday retail season, with plans to bring on approximately 250,000 workers for these roles. However, these positions are mainly temporary and significantly differ from the company’s AI-centered reorganization at the corporate level. As Amazon approaches the reporting of its third-quarter earnings, investors are keen to see if this ambitious transformation—replacing human layers with AI—will result in increased efficiency and growth.
