Amazon announced Tuesday that it plans to cut 14,000 corporate jobs as part of a broader effort to become leaner in an era shaped by AI.
Employees in the US, Canada, and Europe have been receiving notifications about the cuts, according to internal Slack posts viewed by Business Insider.
A notification to affected workers, sent by Amazon’s HR chief, Beth Galetti, and posted to Amazon’s internal Slack, suggested that laid-off employees would receive full pay and benefits for the next 90 days, plus a severance offer.
Galetti announced the cuts in a blog post on Tuesday, stating that despite the company’s performance, it is reducing jobs as a result of AI rapidly changing the world.
Business Insider viewed an internal breakdown of roughly 7,500 employees who first received layoff notices on Tuesday. More than 78% of those roles were held by managers assigned at levels five to seven, an internal designation that covers junior to senior managers.
More than 80% of the employees in the breakdown worked in Amazon’s retail business, spanning e-commerce, human resources, and logistics.
According to internal Slack messages seen by Business Insider, some of the Amazon employees affected by the cuts also work in advertising, recruitment, payments, devices, Fire TV, and customer behavior analytics.
Amazon’s mass job cuts extend to its audiobook and podcast division, Audible. CEO Bob Carrigan told employees in an email Tuesday, which was seen by Business Insider, that affected workers have been notified and additional organizational changes would follow “to add focus and speed” to the business’s most critical growth areas.
Carrigan said that Audible is “laser-focused on making sure we are organized and resourced for continued strength in the years ahead.”
Tapas Roy, vice president of device software and services, emailed the organization saying the company cut roles within its OS & Services team and asked remaining workers to “lean in on AI.”
Some employees in Germany received a security alert on their work devices indicating that their access to company systems had been placed in “reduced functionality mode,” according to an internal Slack message reviewed by Business Insider.
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The message explained that this status typically appears when an employee’s role is being closed or transferred. The company notified the local works council of the job cuts in Germany, according to a memo shared internally by Nils Gräf, Amazon’s director for Germany, which was seen by Business Insider.
Amazon has a total of 1.55 million employees globally. The cuts would represent about 4% of Amazon’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees.
Amazon declined to comment, referring Business Insider to Galetti’s earlier blog post.
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