Amazon has announced it is cutting 16,000 jobs worldwide as part of efforts to streamline operations, marking the second major wave of redundancies in three months. The US online retail giant, which employs approximately 1.5 million people globally, previously slashed 14,000 roles in October.
Most of the job cuts are expected in the US, though some UK roles may also be affected. In a blogpost to staff, Beth Galetti, senior vice-president of people experience and technology, said the changes aim to “strengthen our organisation by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy”. She stressed that this does not signal regular waves of layoffs.
Affected US employees will have 90 days to find a new internal role, with varying timelines in other countries. Amazon said it will continue hiring in strategic areas. The announcement came hours after an erroneous message was sent to Amazon Web Services (AWS) workers, revealing the cuts under the codename “Project Dawn”.
The leaked email, signed by senior vice-president Colleen Aubrey, mistakenly stated that affected employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed. Amazon has been scaling back its pandemic-era hiring to cut costs, with CEO Andy Jassy previously warning that some white-collar roles could be replaced by AI.
In the UK, a few hundred corporate jobs in London and Manchester are expected to be cut, while warehouses remain unaffected. The news follows a similar announcement by United Parcel Service (UPS), which plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs this year as it reduces low-margin deliveries for Amazon.
