Amazon plans to axe 30,000 corporate jobs in massive AI-driven layoff wave
By isabelle // 2025-10-28
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  • Amazon is preparing to lay off 30,000 corporate employees.
  • The cuts impact nearly 10% of its corporate workforce across key divisions.
  • This is the largest single layoff under CEO Andy Jassy's leadership.
  • The company cites cost-cutting and the integration of AI as primary drivers.
  • This follows a previous round of 27,000 job cuts in 2022 and 2023.
In a move that sends a chilling message about the future of the white-collar worker, Amazon is preparing to swing the axe on a staggering 30,000 corporate employees. The job cuts, set to begin Tuesday, represent a nearly 10 percent reduction of the company’s 350,000-person corporate workforce and mark the largest single layoff since the tech giant eliminated 27,000 positions beginning in late 2022. This decision, driven by a push for cost-cutting and the integration of artificial intelligence, highlights a disturbing trend where corporate efficiency is prioritized over the livelihoods of thousands. According to reports from Reuters, the layoffs will ripple across multiple divisions. The corporate bloodletting is expected to affect human resources, known internally as the People Experience and Technology or PXT group, as well as operations, devices and services, and the vital Amazon Web Services cloud unit. This strategic shift underscores a fundamental restructuring of how the corporate behemoth operates, moving away from human labor and toward automated systems. The scale of this layoff is unprecedented for Amazon under CEO Andy Jassy’s leadership. Since taking the helm from founder Jeff Bezos, Jassy has overseen a relentless campaign to trim what he has described as an excess of bureaucracy. This latest cut of 30,000 jobs, however, dwarfs previous efforts and signals a new, aggressive phase in the company’s operational philosophy, one that appears to view a significant portion of its corporate staff as expendable.

A pattern of corporate contraction

This is not an isolated event but part of a concerning pattern. The planned 30,000 job cuts follow the 27,000 positions eliminated in 2022 and 2023. This repeated contraction suggests a company in a perpetual state of flux, one that rapidly expanded during the pandemic only to just as rapidly discard the very employees who helped manage that growth. The human cost of this corporate strategy is immense, creating widespread uncertainty and instability. At the heart of this workforce reduction is a relentless drive to reduce costs and reverse what the company calls "pandemic-era overhiring." Yet, this justification rings hollow to those who remember the massive profits Amazon reaped during the same period. The company now seeks a "stronger cost structure," a corporate euphemism that often translates to shattered careers and broken families for those on the receiving end of a pink slip. The role of artificial intelligence in these layoffs cannot be overstated. Jassy himself has been a vocal proponent of AI, acknowledging that its increased use would lead to job cuts by automating repetitive and routine tasks. In a June communication, he warned employees to embrace automation or risk being left behind. He wrote that those who “become conversant in AI” would be best positioned to “help us reinvent the company.” This creates a troubling ultimatum for workers: adapt to the technology that may replace your colleagues or become obsolete yourself.

Efficiency comes with a human cost

Managers of impacted teams were instructed to undergo special training on Monday to learn how to communicate the bad news to their staff. Email notifications are scheduled to start going out on Tuesday morning, a cold and impersonal method for delivering life-altering news. The process reduces human beings to mere data points in a cost-saving algorithm, stripping away the dignity of work and loyalty. Further adding to the callous nature of these cuts are reports regarding Amazon’s stringent return-to-office policy. The policy, among the strictest in the tech industry, was reportedly intended to generate employee attrition. When that failed to produce enough voluntary departures, the company allegedly told some remote employees they had "voluntarily quit" and could leave without severance, a blatant maneuver to save money at the direct expense of workers. While Amazon pares back its corporate roles, it simultaneously announced plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers for the holiday rush. This dichotomy reveals a corporate priority for flexible, temporary labor over stable, long-term careers. It paints a picture of a future workforce where permanent positions are scarce and job security is a relic of the past. As artificial intelligence and automation become central to corporate strategy, the very definition of work and the value of the worker are being radically redefined, and not necessarily for the better. The pursuit of profit and efficiency, it seems, has a very human price. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com Reuters.com NYPost.com
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