“Amazon.com plans to lay off as many as 30,000 employees starting as early as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest cost-cutting move for the tech giant that is seeking to slim down and conserve cash.
The job cuts, which won't all happen this week, would amount to roughly 10% of the online giant's corporate workforce, the people said.
Thousands of corporate pink slips are expected to go out Tuesday, cutting across the organization and hitting human resources, cloud computing, advertising and a number of other business units, the people said. The total number of reductions hasn't been finalized, one of the people said.
Amazon's job cuts come as large companies in the U.S. are looking at ways to reduce or slow the growth of their head count, including by employing artificial intelligence. Rising prices, a tighter labor market and the ebb and flow of President Trump's trade war have led corporate leaders to look at ways to tighten belts without hurting growth.
Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy has been on a yearslong campaign to cut expenses as the company ramped up spending on AI in the face of increased competition for its cloud computing business.
Reuters earlier reported the number of job cuts.
The latest round of job cuts would be the largest since 2022, when Amazon eliminated around 27,000 roles. That layoff occurred in waves.
The company views the cuts in part as an effort to correct an aggressive hiring period during the pandemic, the people said. During that period, a boom in online shopping led Amazon to double its warehouse network over a two-year period, an expansion that created both blue- and white-collar positions.
Amazon CEO Jassy has sought to find ways for the company to do more with less. In June Jassy sent a note to employees that said increasing use of artificial intelligence will eliminate the need for certain jobs. He called generative AI a once-in-a-lifetime technological change that is already altering how Amazon deals with consumers and other businesses and how it conducts its own operations, including job cuts.
"As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done," he said at the time. "It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce."
Amazon is due to report financial results for the third quarter on Thursday.
More big companies are betting they can grow without hiring.
JPMorgan Chase's chief financial officer told investors recently that the bank now has a "very strong bias against having the reflective response" to hire more people. Aerospace and defense company RTX boasted last week that its sales rose even without adding employees.
Goldman Sachs sent a memo to staffers this month saying the firm "will constrain head count growth through the end of the year" and reduce roles that could be more efficient with AI. Walmart, the nation's largest private employer, has said it plans to keep its head count roughly flat over the next three years, even as its sales grow.
Earlier this month, Amazon showed off how investments in robots and AI could help drive down costs, boosting sales without the need for as many human workers. A robot arm called Blue Jay is expected to enable Amazon to build smaller warehouses in urban areas, where it couldn't previously operate.
The company is also experimenting with using AI tools to predict what customers might want to buy and suggest items to add to a shopping basket.
Despite straddling businesses as diverse as retail and live sports broadcasting, Amazon's market capitalization of more than $2 trillion is increasingly reliant on its AI prowess.
Amazon has been punished by investors after appearing to lag behind many of its competitors in the AI race. In July, the company reported sharp increases in sales and profit for the second quarter, but slower growth in its cloud-computing business than Microsoft's and Google's. Amazon shares fell 7% as a result.
In a note to clients following the results, Bernstein said Amazon's results raised "uncomfortable questions" about whether the company should be considered an "AI winner" or a laggard.
The company said its capital expenditures rose to $31.4 billion for the period, most of which went to AI and cloud-computing investments. At the time, Amazon said the figure was "reasonably representative" of its planned spending for the rest of the year.” [1]
1. Amazon to Lay Off Up to 30,000 --- Cuts could amount to roughly 10% of online giant's white-collar workforce. Mclain, Sean. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Oct 2025: B1
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