Amazon may lay off thousands more employees

In October 2025, Amazon laid off 14,000 office workers. Reuters Citing close sources, the company plans to conduct a second round of job cuts with an amount equivalent to last year, possibly starting from January 27.

An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.

The adjustment will affect Amazon Web Services (AWS), retail, Prime Video and human resources departments. The full scope of the impact is unclear and details of Amazon’s plans could change, the source said.

During the October 2025 cuts, Amazon announced that the company needed to streamline its apparatus and that AI was developing strongly. “This generation of AI is the most disruptive technology we have seen since the birth of the Internet, allowing companies to innovate faster than ever before,” the company wrote in an internal letter. Workers who lose their jobs will continue to receive wages for 90 days. During that time, they can apply for other internal positions or look for work at another company.

However, CEO Andy Jassy later told analysts during the third quarter 2025 conference call that the layoffs were not really due to financial or AI factors. He believes the cause is “cultural” and the company has too many cumbersome systems.

More and more businesses are using AI to code software and use AI agents to automate routine tasks, thereby saving costs and reducing human dependence. Amazon introduced its latest AI models at its annual AWS cloud computing conference last month.

The number of nearly 30,000 in two rounds of layoffs represents only a small portion of Amazon’s total 1.58 million employees, but accounts for 10% of the office workforce. The majority of the company’s employees work at warehouses and fulfillment centers.

Previously, Amazon had cut 27,000 jobs by 2022.