In what could become one of the largest single waves of white-collar job cuts in recent U.S. tech history, Amazon plans to eliminate up to 30,000 corporate roles, representing nearly 10% of its approximate 350,000 office-based employees. The cuts reportedly begin this week, with managers having been briefed and notification emails scheduled to go out shortly.
The move comes as Amazon seeks to reverse the effects of an “over hiring”during the pandemic, tighten its cost structure and accelerate an internal pivot toward automation and artificial intelligence. The company’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which still enjoys growth, has already seen job reductions this year in select teams.
While Amazon has not formally confirmed exact numbers or the full scope of divisions affected, reports point to areas such as human resources (People Experience and Technology), devices and services, operations and parts of AWS as being targeted. Analysts suggest this is the company’s most aggressive cost-rationalization move since the job cut announced in 2022.
From a financial-markets perspective, investors appear to be reading the move as a signal of sharper efficiency discipline: Amazon’s share price ticked upward amid the reports. At the same time, the company continues to invest heavily in automation and AI infrastructure, even as it trims staff, highlighting the strategic tension between growth initiatives and cost control.
For the impacted workers and broader labour market, the implications could be far reaching. The cuts underscore the growing risk faced by corporate and knowledge-economy employees in large tech firms, particularly those in roles vulnerable to automation. They also contribute to ongoing questions about how companies will balance hiring, efficiency, growth and risk in an evolving macroeconomic and technological environment.
