Amazon, the e-commerce leader, is preparing to eliminate approximately 30,000 corporate positions starting Tuesday as part of a significant cost-reduction strategy aimed at optimizing operations after a period of excessive hiring during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although this number constitutes a minor fraction of Amazon’s total workforce of 1.55 million, it represents 10 percent of the company’s approximately 350,000 corporate employees, making it the largest reduction since the 27,000 layoffs conducted between late 2022 and early 2023. This decision follows a report from Fortune indicating that the company intends to reduce its human resources team by up to 15 percent, with additional cuts anticipated across various departments.
Over the last two years, Amazon has been steadily trimming its workforce in several sectors, including devices, communications, and podcasting. Earlier reports from Bloomberg mentioned that around 110 positions were recently cut in Amazon’s Wondery podcast division. In July 2025, hundreds of jobs were eliminated from Amazon Web Services (AWS), and in May, nearly 100 roles were removed from its devices and services division. The current layoffs are expected to impact multiple areas, including Human Resources (People Experience and Technology), Devices and Services, and Operations. CEO Andy Jassy has been spearheading efforts to reduce what he refers to as unnecessary bureaucracy, which includes the elimination of certain management levels.
Reports indicate that Jassy established an anonymous feedback line to uncover inefficiencies within the organization, yielding over 1,500 responses and resulting in 450 changes to processes. In June 2025, Jassy noted that artificial intelligence (AI) tools would increasingly take over repetitive tasks, which could lead to additional job cuts. He encouraged employees to adapt to these changes, become familiar with AI, and contribute to the development and enhancement of internal AI capabilities to better serve customers.