Organizational "Slimming Down": A Total of 30,000 Jobs Cut in Three Months

Amazon recently announced a new round of layoffs, affecting about 16,000 employees. This move follows the company's previous cut of 14,000 jobs in October last year, meaning that within less than four months, Amazon has reduced approximately 30,000 positions across the company.

Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of Human Experience and Technology at Amazon, confirmed this news in an internal company letter. She stated that the company will provide affected U.S. employees with a 90-day internal transfer period. If employees cannot find a new position within that time, they will receive severance pay and appropriate transition support.

Taking Aim at "Big Company Illness": Reducing Hierarchy to Improve Efficiency

CEO Andy Jassy emphasized that this large-scale layoff is not solely driven by financial considerations but aims to eliminate "big company illness." He pointed out that the company experienced explosive growth during the pandemic, leading to a bloated management structure and slow decision-making processes.

Amazon's current strategic goal is to become the world's largest startup again. By reducing management layers and eliminating bureaucracy, the company hopes to enhance team autonomy and execution speed. Jassy previously also publicly stated that as AI technology improves efficiency, the size of Amazon's workforce will naturally shrink in the coming years.

AI Reshaping the Workplace: From Routine Work to Innovation and Collaboration

Although Amazon officially attributes this round of layoffs more to "cultural and structural adjustments," many believe the role of AI cannot be ignored. Amazon invested nearly $10 billion in AI infrastructure in 2025, aiming to use generative AI to optimize internal processes.

In warehouses, logistics, and some highly process-oriented administrative roles, AI has already shown the potential to surpass human capabilities in accuracy and efficiency. This technological advantage reduces costs but also leads to the disappearance of some traditional roles. However, Amazon emphasizes that the adoption of AI is not to completely replace humans, but rather to take over repetitive tasks, freeing up human creativity, emotional communication, and complex decision-making abilities.

The key to responding to this trend lies in "human-AI collaboration." In the future, the core of workplace competitiveness will no longer be the ability to complete processes, but rather how to use AI tools for innovation, optimize core business operations, and explore entirely new career paths.

Would you like me to conduct an in-depth investigation into Amazon's specific hiring focus for its AWS cloud computing department in 2026, or would you like an analysis of the actual pass rate of its "90-day internal transfer" policy under the AI background?