SEATTLE – Reports in the Associated Press and elsewhere confirmed this week that Amazon will cut about 14,000 corporate jobs as the online juggernaut “ramps up spending on artificial intelligence while cutting costs elsewhere.”
Most workers will be given 90 days to look for a new position internally, wrote Beth Galetti, senior vice president of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, in a letter to employees. Those who can’t find a new role at the company or who opt not to look for one will be provided transitional support including severance pay, outplacement services, and health insurance.
“Amazon has about 350,000 corporate employees and a total workforce of approximately 1.56 million,” writes Michelle Chapman, reporter for the Associated Press. “The cuts announced Tuesday amount to about a 4% reduction in its corporate workforce. In June CEO Andy Jassy, who has aggressively sought to cut costs since becoming CEO in 2021, said that he anticipated generative AI would reduce Amazon’s corporate workforce in the next few years. Jassy said at the time that Amazon had more than 1,000 generative AI services and applications in progress or built, but that figure was a ‘small fraction’ of what it plans to build.”
“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well,” wrote Galetti in her letter. “Across our businesses, we’re delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results. What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly.
“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 (in existing market segments and altogether new ones),” she continues. “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”