“AI cuts” at Amazon – 16 thousand employees lose their jobs

“Some of you may be wondering if this is the start of a new rhythm where we announce massive layoffs every few months. We have no such plans,” wrote Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of human experience and technology.

It was previously reported that Amazon intends to carry out a new wave of cuts and fire thousands of employees.

The layoffs will be the second stage of a large-scale reduction of white-collar workers (corporate staff), which Reuters wrote about earlier.

In October, Amazon laid off about 14,000 office workers. The new wave is expected to be comparable in scale to the October one.

Reuters warned that the cuts could affect Amazon Web Services (AWS), its retail business, Prime Video, and the HR division known as People Experience and Technology (PXT), but the full list of divisions is unclear and plans are subject to change.

Reuters recalls that in October the company associated the cuts with the restructuring of processes against the backdrop of the introduction of artificial intelligence tools. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly spoken in recent years about his intention to reduce “bureaucracy” and the number of management levels in the corporation.