Recently, Amazon has confirmed that it is cutting approximately 16,000 corporate jobs in a major global workforce reduction. This layoff is larger than last year, when Amazon reduced 14,000 positions in October 2025, which means Amazon has reduced roughly 30,000 people in just three months. The job losses span a variety of business units, including cloud services (AWS), retail operations, Prime Video, advertising and other office-based teams, though frontline warehouse and delivery workers remain largely unaffected.
Speaking of reasons for this layoff, according to Amazon’s leadership, the layoffs are part of an organizational overhaul aimed at reducing bureaucracy, removing management layers, and increasing decision-making speed. The CEO of Amazon "Andy Jassy" and other executives have framed the cuts as a move to return to a 'startup culture'. Senior executives also argue that years of rapid hiring, especially during the pandemic — have left the company with more and more staff in certain areas than needed for its current goals.
These layoffs and certain changes coincide with heavy investments in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology infrastructure. This potentially reduces the need for some traditional corporate roles. The layoffs also coincide with the closure of specific physical retail initiatives, such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores.
For many of the 16,000 affected corporate workers, Amazon is now offering support during the transition. Most U.S.-based employees will typically have 90 days to seek internal roles elsewhere in the company before separation takes effect. If people are unable to transfer or choose not to pursue another role, Amazon has said that it will provide severance pay, outplacement services (help finding a new job), health insurance benefits for a period of time, and other transition support as well.
I personally think that these layoffs, which are taking place in large corporations are now becoming a trend. Analysts like "Glassdoor's Economic Research team" in their 2026 'Worklife Trends Report', have termed this layoff as a "Forever Layoff". Even financial and technology sector analyst like "Alan Cohen" have termed this situation as a "Structural Reset" in their report 'RationalFX' to explain that job losses aren't just temporary cost-cutting, but a permanent reimagining of the corporate workforce. Amazon says it will continue to invest selectively in future-focused roles even as it cuts others.
What are your thoughts on this recent layoff that took place at Amazon? Let us know all your answers in the comments where you can also provide the latest news so I can make a breakdown of it.
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