Amazon plans to cut about 14,000 corporate jobs as it pursues leaner structure

Amazon said on Tuesday it will reduce its corporate workforce by about 14,000 roles, continuing a multi-year effort to streamline operations and shift resources into priority areas such as artificial intelligence.

The company’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, outlined the changes in a blog post shared with employees.

“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs,” Galetti wrote.

She said most affected employees will have 90 days to seek internal opportunities, with transition support including severance, outplacement services and health benefits for those leaving the business.

Galetti framed the cuts within a broader organisational push set out by Amazon’s group of senior leaders, noting cultural goals to “operate like the world’s largest startup.” “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet,” she wrote, adding that Amazon must be “organised more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.” The company expects to continue hiring in strategic areas through 2026 while finding further efficiency gains.

Reuters reported on Monday that the reductions could total as many as 30,000 corporate roles, citing people familiar with the plans. Amazon has already been restructuring across divisions including books, devices and services, and its Wondery podcast unit, following pandemic-era hiring that left the organisation larger than its leadership believes is necessary. Earlier rounds in late 2022 and early 2023 eliminated about 27,000 corporate positions, according to Bloomberg reporting.

The latest decision comes as corporations increase their use of AI to automate routine tasks and accelerate software development. In June, Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive officer, said growing adoption of generative AI tools would reduce the company’s total corporate workforce over the next few years.

Business Insider separately reported that Amazon has tightened bureaucracy, cut management layers and set more aggressive attrition targets while reorganising budgets, including a hiring freeze in retail earlier this year and layoffs at Amazon Web Services over the summer.

Amazon employed roughly 1.56 million people globally at the end of 2024, with about 350,000 in corporate roles, according to company and Reuters figures. The firm is scheduled to report quarterly earnings this week, giving investors a chance to assess how the restructuring intersects with spending on AI and other growth bets.