Amazon is cutting 16,000 jobs worldwide — with the US taking the biggest hit
Layoffs in America are on the rise, and it seems like Amazon is leading the charge. Recently, it was revealed that the company would cut 16,000 roles worldwide, most of which were in the US. This announcement comes only three months after the company had already done away with 14,000 roles. That said, Amazon did mention that affected US-based employees will be given 90 days to find a new role internally.
According to Beth Galetti, the senior vice-president of people experience and technology, these organisational changes were aimed at strengthening Amazon by reducing layers, removing bureaucracy, and increasing ownership. She also claimed that the company would still be hiring in strategic areas and functions that it deemed critical to its future. Moreover, Galetti believes that mass layoffs once every few months won’t become a trend in the coming days. “Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months. That’s not our plan,” she had written as per a report in The Guardian. The report also stated that the official announcement came after workers at Amazon Web Services (AWS) received an online meeting invitation from a top executive on Tuesday. This was subsequently cancelled, but it had a draft email revealing the cuts.
As per the mail, those affected by the job cuts in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica had already lost their jobs, but of course, no one had any idea about this at the time. The message was signed off by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice-president of applied AI solutions at Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the layoffs were referred to in the email as “Project Dawn.”
In the email, Aubrey acknowledged that such announcements were difficult for thousands of people who lost their jobs out of the blue. “Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Aubrey wrote, before adding, “These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organisation and AWS for future success.” One could say that such measures were expected, as last year, the company CEO told white-collar employees that their jobs were in danger thanks to AI.
“As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” CEO Andrew Jassy had said as per a different Guardian report. He then went on to add, “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. 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.”
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