Amazon Makes Fresh Job Cuts as Retail Division Faces Workforce Shake-Up

Amazon has made fresh job cuts across its retail operations, eliminating fewer than 1,000 white-collar positions as the company continues to restructure its workforce following a much larger round of layoffs.

The cuts primarily affect Amazon's Stores division, which oversees its main e-commerce business. Employees began receiving notifications about the cuts on Tuesday, 6 October, as Amazon launched Prime Big Deal Days, its two-day shopping event. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the reductions, describing them as a 'small number' of roles eliminated as the company adjusts its structure.

Stores Division Faces Fresh Workforce Changes

'We've adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities,' the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The spokesperson said the company had made 'the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles, and we're committed to supporting affected employees through their transition.'

The internal Slack channel indicated cuts across several Stores divisions, including customer service and selling partner services, with employees in the US, India, and the UK among those receiving pink slips.

According to Business Insider, the layoffs followed months of uncertainty among Amazon's corporate workforce over the prospect of further cuts, according to people familiar with the matter. Some leaders scaled back planning for the coming quarters amid expectations that their teams or priorities could change.

The uncertainty prompted employees to scrutinise leadership meetings and team changes for clues about possible layoffs. In Slack, workers asked whether all notices had been sent, how medical leave would be handled, and whether they would retain access to Slack and Outlook during their transition periods. Others questioned whether cuts could extend to Mexico and parts of Europe.

Some employees also explored options for remaining at Amazon. One employee asked whether accepting an outside job offer during the 90-day notification period could affect their eligibility for severance if they left the company early.

Job Cuts Come as AI Spending Surges

The latest cuts follow a larger restructuring that began last year and continued into January, when the e-commerce giant had cut roughly 30,000 jobs across two rounds. The company has since made smaller reductions, including job cuts in its artificial general intelligence group in July.

Amazon is planning roughly $220 billion in capital expenditures this year as it ramps up investment in AI and data-centre infrastructure, according to reports. The company has also reportedly contacted some employees affected by earlier layoffs about openings in AWS and its AI businesses.

Amazon is not alone in cutting jobs while increasing its AI focus. Meta eliminated roughly 8,000 roles in May and reassigned thousands of employees to AI-related initiatives. Meanwhile, Microsoft also eliminated more than 5,000 roles in July and September, with the July cuts hitting Xbox and commercial sales particularly hard.

Bezos Points to Pandemic Hiring

Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos addressed the company's pandemic-era hiring in a Fox News interview that aired Wednesday. Asked about the roughly 30,000 corporate roles Amazon had cut, Bezos pointed to the company's rapid expansion during the pandemic, when stay-at-home measures drove more consumers to shop online and increased demand for Amazon's services. To keep up with that surge in orders, Amazon expanded its workforce significantly.

'People were staying home, and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us, by the way,' Bezos said. 'The whole team worked extremely hard and did so much, but we really grew our headcount.'