Amazon is reportedly poised to eliminate as many as 30,000 corporate jobs, with cuts expected to begin this week, as the Seattle-based tech giant reverses its significant pandemic-era hiring spree.
CEO Andy Jassy had previously cautioned staff that some roles within the company could be superseded by artificial intelligence (AI).
Global divisions, including human resources, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), are expected to be targeted, according to reports from Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
AWS is the world’s largest cloud computing provider and offers a wide variety of services, including storage, databases, machine learning, and security tools.
Disruption to AWS led to outages across a wide range of internet services around the world last week, including HMRC and several banks in the UK.
Sources told the publications that the plans are part of efforts to cut costs and undo the firm’s major recruitment drive during the height of the pandemic when shoppers shifted their habits online.
The expected cuts will impact almost a 10th of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate workforce.
Amazon employs more than 1.5 million staff in total, with the majority in warehouse roles around the world. The company employs around 75,000 people in the UK.
It has been trimming roles across the business in recent years, with cuts affecting divisions such as devices, communications and podcasting.
In the UK, it revealed plans to shut all its Amazon Fresh grocery stores last month, putting up to 250 jobs at risk.
The proposed plans come after Mr Jassy said in June that the increased use of generative AI and AI agents, autonomous AI software systems, will reduce the size of its corporate workforce in the coming years.
In a note to employees, he said: “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”
Amazon has been contacted for comment.
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