What just happened? Amazon has confirmed reports that it is letting go of thousands of workers globally. The company said it will be eliminating 16,000 roles, which will take its total number of job cuts since October to around 30,000.
Amazon first revealed the layoffs by mistake in a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services. It was sent as part of a calendar invitation late on Tuesday. Aubrey referred to employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica being laid off as part of an effort to "strengthen the company."
The invitation was titled "Send project Dawn email," seemingly a reference to Amazon's internal code name for the cuts.
Now, Amazon's senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, officially confirmed the cuts in a post.
"As I shared in October, we've been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy," Galetti wrote. "While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now."
The post adds that most US-based employees will be offered 90 days to look for a new role internally. Those who cannot find a new position at Amazon during this time or choose not to take one will be provided transition support, including severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits (as applicable), and more.
As the layoffs come just three months after Amazon said it was eliminating 14,000 corporate roles, and considering it has made several huge rounds of job cuts since the pandemic, Galetti said the company was not planning on making broad reductions every few months. There was a caveat, of course: "But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate."
While overhiring during the pandemic is the primary reason behind Amazon's cuts, investment in and adoption of AI is partly a factor – Amazon pretty much confirmed this to be the case. However, following the company's announcement of October's layoffs, CEO Andy Jassy said the reason behind the cuts wasn't actually due to pandemic overhiring, AI, or financial reasons; it was because of "culture."
AI has been the driving factor behind many job cuts in recent years, something that CEOs are starting to admit. In June, Jassy told employees that AI would mean fewer people being required for certain jobs. He added that Amazon expected to reduce its corporate workforce due to the "efficiency gains" introduced by AI.
Amazon also announced that it was closing its Amazon Go and Fresh stores this week "to prioritize investment in growth areas."