Amazon is reportedly planning to lay off about 14,000 of its corporate workers by Tuesday, January 27.
The job cuts are being made as part of the second round of a broader plan to eliminate around 30,000 corporate jobs, sources close to the matter said. Duirng the first round of lay-offs, about14,000 white-collar jobs were cut in October 2025.
The full scope of the layouts is not known, and plans could change, the sources, who were not authorised to discuss the matter, told Reuters.
If the planned lay-offs next week are similar to the size of the October lay-offs, it would amount to the largest set of lay-offs in Amazon's history.
The company had already let go of 27,00 employees in late 2022 and early 2023.
Who will be affected?
The jobs that will be most affected are in Amazon's web services, the retail sector, Prime Video, and human resources, which is called People Experience and Technology, according to the sources. However, they cautioned that Amazon's plans could change.
Affected workers in October were told that they would remain on payroll for 90 days, during which they could apply for jobs internally or seek other employment.
Why the job cuts?
The company tied its multiple rounds of layoffs to the rise of artificial intelligence software.
An internal letter on the October job cuts read, “this generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before.”
CEO Andy Jassy told analysts that the reduction was “not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven.” He attributed it to being “culture”, referring to the layers of bureaucracy in the company. “If you grow as fast as we did for several years, … you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers,” he told Wall Street analysts.
Earlier in 2025, however, he said that he expected the company's corporate workforce to shrink over time as a result of efficiencies gained from AI.
The 30,000 jobs make up around 10 per cent of the firm's total of 1.58 million employees. The majority of workers are in fulfilment centres and warehouses.
