Amazon plans to lay off thousands: Reports

Amazon is reportedly preparing for a second major round of corporate layoffs, with thousands of positions expected to be eliminated as early as next week. 

This development comes amid the company's ongoing efforts to streamline its operations and organizational structure after several years of rapid expansion, particularly during and after the pandemic.

According to a news agency report, the upcoming cuts are part of Amazon's plan to reduce its corporate (white-collar) workforce by approximately 30,000 roles in total. In October 2025, the company already eliminated about 14,000 such positions, roughly half of the target. The second phase is anticipated to be similar in scale, potentially affecting teams in Amazon Web Services (AWS), retail operations, Prime Video, and human resources, as per reports.

CEO Andy Jassy addressed the rationale during the company's Q3 2025 earnings call in late October:

“The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least. It really - it's culture. ... If you grow as fast as we did for several years, the size of businesses, the number of people, the number of locations, the types of businesses you're in, you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers.”

Jassy described the reductions as an effort to cut bureaucracy, flatten hierarchies, remove unnecessary management layers, and restore a more agile, startup-like culture to support faster decision-making and innovation.

For employees impacted in the October round, Amazon provided support including severance, extended benefits, and a 90-day period on payroll during which they could apply for internal roles or seek opportunities elsewhere. That 90-day period for those affected workers expires on Monday.