Amazon Plans to Cut 30,000 Office Jobs, According to Several Media Outlets

EMPLOYMENT: These jobs represent nearly 10% of the home delivery Amazon giant’s office positions worldwide. These deletions are notably motivated by the development of artificial intelligence

Amazon a series of layoffs spread over several months, affecting around 30,000 office workers worldwide, according to several American media. This decision is part of the desire of its boss, Andy Jassy, to reduce costs, while the group increases investments in artificial intelligence. The company confirmed this Tuesday a first wave of cuts of 14,000 positions, without specifying the countries.

These reductions “are a continuation of (the) efforts to become even stronger, by further reducing bureaucracy, removing (hierarchical) levels and reallocating resources”, wrote Beth Galetti, vice president of resources human resources and technology, in a statement published on the Amazon website. Targeting support or strategic functions (human resources, advertising, executives, etc.), they could represent up to nearly 10% of the 350,000 office positions of the American giant online commerce, but do not concern the workforce of warehouses, which represent the majority of Amazon’s more than 1.5 million employees. The group of Seattle has not publicly confirmed this information, reported by anonymous sources cited by Reuters, the Wall Street Journal or even the New York Times, three days before the publication of its quarterly results.

Post-covid adjustment

The American media cite different motivations for this wave of layoffs, the largest since the 27,000 job cuts in winter 2022-2023: to correct the situation after the strong hiring of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first dismissal letters are expected on Tuesday, according to American media, while others will leave in January, after the peak of activity during the end-of-year holidays.

The total number of deletions, however, is not yet final, according to an anonymous source cited by the New York Times. In June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy explicitly announced that the development of generative AI would, “in the coming years […] reduce our office workforce”. “Rising prices, a tighter job market and the vagaries of President Trump’s trade war have pushed business leaders to look for ways to tighten their belts without harming growth”, he analyzes Wall Street Journal.

Robots in warehouses

Questions about the future of workers at the company, the 2nd largest employer in the United States with 1.2 million employees, also arise in warehouses, where Amazon is accelerating automation thanks to robots and AI. According to the New York Times, Amazon could forgo more than 160,000 hires by 2027, despite expected increases in consumer demand for deliveries.

Significant job cuts among white-collar workers are also taking place among other American tech giants. Microsoft announced in July that it would increase its reduction plan to 15,000 planned departures. Meta fired some 600 people from its AI division on Wednesday, after a major recruitment campaign.