Company confirms 16,000 redundancies
US technology giant Amazon has confirmed Amazon job cuts affecting 16,000 employees, hours after staff were informed of a new round of global redundancies in an email that was apparently sent in error.
The email, seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday and referred to employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica being laid off as part of efforts to “strengthen the company”. The message was quickly withdrawn, suggesting it had been shared by mistake.
Early on Wednesday, Amazon formally announced the job reductions, saying they were part of a plan to “remove bureaucracy” across the company.
Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said the company was not planning to make “broad reductions every few months”, referring to the 14,000 job cuts announced in October.
“While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now,” she said.
Project Dawn email sent in error
On Tuesday, a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was included in a calendar invitation sent by an executive assistant to a number of Amazon employees.
The invitation was titled “Send Project Dawn email”, a reference to the internal code name used for the Amazon job cuts.
Although the email confirmed layoffs were taking place, employees had not yet been officially informed.
“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.
According to a former employee who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, the 16,000 job cuts had been expected for weeks. The broader understanding among staff was that Amazon intended to eliminate around 30,000 roles in total, with further redundancies anticipated through to the end of May.
Laid-off workers were invited to apply for open positions within Amazon, though available roles were limited. Those who did not secure another position received severance pay based on their length of service.
Wider tech industry layoffs
Since 2022, major technology companies including Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft have cut tens of thousands of jobs each year. Across the global tech industry, an estimated 700,000 people have been laid off over the past four years, according to Layoffs.fyi.
So far this year, Facebook owner Meta has cut several hundred roles, while Pinterest announced the loss of around 700 jobs this week.
Cultural and structural changes at Amazon
Since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as chief executive four years ago, his successor Andy Jassy has overseen multiple rounds of layoffs in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Jassy has also pushed for a stricter work culture, making five-day in-office work mandatory, a policy that sets Amazon apart from most major tech companies.
The company has focused on cost-cutting measures, including reportedly monitoring corporate mobile phone usage by AWS employees to limit a long-standing monthly reimbursement.
In an email sent to staff ahead of Thanksgiving and seen by the BBC, Jassy described the current period at Amazon as “a time to rethink everything we’ve ever done”, adding that the world was changing at a rapid pace.
Earlier this week, Amazon also announced plans to close its remaining Amazon-branded grocery stores, Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, while expanding its Whole Foods Market business.
Source: BBC
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