Amazon said Wednesday it will eliminate another 16,000 jobs, extending a sweeping cost-cutting campaign that has now removed 30,000 positions across the company in just three months.
The latest round of layoffs follows a reduction of 14,000 roles announced in October and underscores how the tech giant is reshaping its workforce amid slowing growth, rising costs, and shifting priorities around efficiency and automation.
Amazon’s decision reflects a wider trend across corporate America, where companies are increasingly focused on doing more with fewer employees. Executives across the tech sector have cited a combination of artificial intelligence-driven productivity gains, over-expansion during the post-pandemic hiring boom, and continued pressure from inflation as reasons for ongoing workforce reductions.
Rather than executing a single, sweeping restructuring, many firms — including Amazon — are opting for staggered reductions, a pattern some analysts have described as the “forever layoff.”
The company said the newly announced cuts affect teams that had not yet completed internal reorganizations following the October layoffs.
In a blog post announcing the move, Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, said the changes were part of a broader effort to simplify structures and improve decision-making speed.
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“While we’re making these changes, we’ll also continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future,” Galetti wrote. “We’re still in the early stages of building every one of our businesses and there’s significant opportunity ahead.”
Amazon did not disclose which divisions are most affected, but said the reductions span multiple business units.
Despite the job cuts, Amazon emphasized that it is not freezing hiring entirely. The company said it will continue to recruit in areas tied to long-term growth, including cloud services, artificial intelligence, and other strategic initiatives.
This dual-track approach — cutting roles in some areas while expanding others — has become increasingly common among large technology companies navigating slower revenue growth and investor pressure to improve margins.
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According to reporting by Reuters and the Associated Press, Amazon has been steadily trimming management layers over the past year, aiming to reduce bureaucracy and streamline operations.
Amazon’s move comes as peers across the tech and retail sectors pursue similar strategies. After years of aggressive hiring during the pandemic-era e-commerce surge, many companies are now recalibrating headcounts to better align with current demand.
Economists say AI tools have accelerated that shift by allowing teams to automate tasks that once required larger staffs, while shareholders have pushed companies to rein in spending amid economic uncertainty.
Amazon has not ruled out further workforce adjustments, but executives have framed the current cuts as part of a longer-term restructuring rather than an emergency response.