New York, Oct 29 (UNI) Ecommerce major Amazon said it would cut 14,000 corporate staffers this year in a mass layoff aimed at readying the company for wide adoption of AI technology.
The company noted that it would be hiring in key areas and would prioritize those who lost their jobs for those roles. But the company also said it wasn’t done with layoffs, reports CNN.
“We expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas while also finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains,” said Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience in a memo to employees that the company put on its public blog.
Reuters, which on Monday first reported Amazon would lay off staff, said the job cuts could ultimately reach 30,000.
Galetti said Amazon needs to operate more leanly to achieve CEO Andy Jassy’s vision of operating like the world’s biggest startup. Jassy wants the company to remain nimble so it can adapt and change quickly as AI upends the technology sector.
“What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before,” Galetti said. “We’re convicted that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”
Amazon has over 350,000 corporate employees, according to a 2024 survey filed to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so the cuts represent about 4 percent of the company’s overall staff.
Layoffs will begin Tuesday. Most employees will be given 90 days to look for new roles internally, while people that can’t get new jobs at Amazon will be given severance pay and additional benefits.
