Amazon announced today that it is cutting 16,000 jobs across the company. This reduction follows the e-commerce company’s layoff of 14,000 people in October.
In a letter to employees, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, Beth Galetti, explained that these layoffs were made to reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy. She noted the reason for this second round of massive layoffs within three months was that several teams in the company had not finished their restructuring.
Galetti did not outright deny that there might be more job cuts in the company, but stated that Amazon is not trying to create a pattern of large layoffs every few months. She said that while this is not the plan, every team will continue to evaluate its ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.
In October, Amazon reported having 1.57 million employees. The company had registered single-digit growth in the five quarters prior to that, according to its third quarter 2025 filings. Amazon is set to publish its fourth quarter 2025 results next week.
In the latest communication, Galetti said that despite these job cuts, the company will continue to hire in strategic areas.
Last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote a memo indicating that because of artificial intelligence, the company will need fewer people doing some current jobs and more people doing other types of jobs. He also indicated the company’s corporate workforce will see a reduction in the next few years.
Separately, Amazon recently sent an erroneous meeting invite to numerous AWS employees that addressed job cuts and a “Project Dawn” initiative, which confused workers. The invite was canceled shortly after.
On Tuesday, Amazon said it is closing its physical Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores to concentrate on increasing capacity for same-day grocery delivery. The company instead plans to expand Whole Foods’ footprint and open 100 new stores over the next few years.