Amazon said in a blog post it has cut another 16,000 corporate jobs, completing about 30,000 corporate role reductions that began last October. Beth Galetti, the company’s top human resources executive, said the intent is to strengthen the business by reducing management layers, increasing ownership and removing bureaucracy.
The 30,000 corporate cuts account for nearly 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce but represent a small share of the company’s roughly 1.5 million employees worldwide, most of whom work in warehouses and distribution centers. The announcement followed an earlier mistaken email that referenced the layoff plan as Project Dawn and upset some Amazon Web Services staff.
Galetti signaled that some teams may still make adjustments as needed but sought to reassure employees that this is not the start of an ongoing cadence of broad reductions. The post did not specify which business units were affected or give details on the distribution of the cuts.
CEO Andy Jassy has said wider adoption of AI tools will automate tasks and lead to corporate job losses, and Amazon has acknowledged it overhired during the COVID-19 surge in online demand. Other companies, including UPS, Pinterest and ASML, have also announced recent workforce reductions as the sector restructures.