Image: Adobe Stock
An internal email referring to a new wave of redundancies was sent to a number of Amazon employees before being cancelled.
In another blow to the tech sector, Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs worldwide.
This move underscores the continued retrenchment across the tech sector as companies adjust to slower growth, rising costs, and shifting workplace expectations. The confirmation came hours after an internal email outlining the redundancies was apparently sent to staff by mistake and then swiftly withdrawn.
The job losses, which were expected, represent one of Amazon’s largest rounds of cuts since the pandemic-era expansion and highlight the scale of restructuring under chief executive Andy Jassy, who has been pushing to streamline operations and tighten discipline across the company.
On Tuesday (Jan. 27), an internal email referring to a new wave of redundancies was sent to a number of Amazon employees before being cancelled. The message, seen by the BBC, referred to staff in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica being laid off as part of efforts to “strengthen the company.”
The email appeared to have been shared prematurely. It was included in a calendar invitation titled “Send project Dawn email,” an apparent reference to Amazon’s internal code name for the redundancies. The draft message was written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services, and was sent by an executive assistant before official communications were due to go out.
“This is a continuation of the work we’ve been doing for more than a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy, so that we can move faster for customers,” the email said.
“Changes like this are hard on everyone. These decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success,” it added.
While the message made clear that cuts were imminent, employees had not yet been formally informed, adding to confusion and anxiety among staff.
On Wednesday (Jan. 28), Amazon publicly confirmed the job reductions, framing them as part of a broader effort to “remove bureaucracy” and simplify decision-making across the organization.
Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, said the company was not planning to make “broad reductions every few months”, addressing concerns raised after Amazon announced 14,000 corporate job cuts in October.
“While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now,” she said.
Amazon employs around 1.5 million people globally, including roughly 350,000 in corporate roles. The company has not disclosed which divisions or countries will be most affected by the latest round of cuts, though the earlier email referenced staff across North America and parts of Central America.
According to a former Amazon employee, the redundancies had been widely anticipated internally for weeks. The former worker, who asked not to be identified, said there was a broad understanding among staff that management intended to cut around 30,000 roles in total.
The individual added that Amazon was expected to reach that figure through another significant round of layoffs this month, followed by further job losses through to the end of May. The former employee left Amazon during a previous redundancy round in October.
Affected workers were invited to apply for other open positions within the company, but the number of available roles was limited. Those who were unable to secure new posts were offered severance packages based on their length of service.
The job cuts form part of a wider transformation at Amazon since founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as chief executive four years ago. His successor, Jassy, has overseen multiple rounds of layoffs as the company seeks to rein in costs after a period of rapid hiring during the pandemic.
Jassy has also moved to impose a stricter workplace culture. Amazon now requires corporate staff to work in the office five days a week, making it one of the few major technology firms to mandate full-time office attendance.
Cost-cutting measures have extended into everyday expenses. According to a report by Business Insider, Amazon has monitored corporate mobile phone usage by AWS employees in an effort to curb a long-standing $50-per-month reimbursement.
In an email sent to employees ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday and viewed by the BBC, Jassy said he was thankful for the “challenges at opportunities at work” as “the world is changing at a very rapid rate.”
He described the current period at Amazon as “a time to rethink everything we’ve ever done.”
The layoffs come amid broader changes to Amazon’s business strategy. Earlier this week, the company announced it would close its remaining Amazon-branded grocery stores, including Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, while expanding its Whole Foods Market business instead.
Together, the store closures and job cuts point to a renewed focus on core, higher-margin operations, particularly cloud computing and logistics, as Amazon responds to pressure from investors to improve efficiency and profitability.
Amazon is not alone. Across the technology sector, companies that expanded aggressively during the pandemic have been scaling back workforces as consumer demand normalises and borrowing costs remain high.
For Amazon employees, however, the accidental email served as a stark reminder of the uncertainty surrounding the restructuring process. While executives have sought to reassure staff that the cuts are nearing completion, the scale of the reductions and the manner in which they were revealed have left many workers questioning what further changes may still lie ahead.
Amazon is moving toward resolving a major class action lawsuit that accused the company of improperly handling customer returns, with a proposed settlement valued at more than $1 billion.
