Amazon to Slash 30,000 Corporate Jobs in Major AI-Focused Restructuring

 

Amazon is reportedly preparing a massive reduction in its corporate workforce, with plans to cut tens of thousands of office jobs as the company doubles down on cost efficiency and artificial intelligence (AI) investments.

According to multiple reports, up to 30,000 positions could be eliminated starting this week, representing nearly 10% of Amazon’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees. The layoffs are expected to spare distribution and warehouse staff, who make up the bulk of Amazon’s 1.5 million global workforce.

CEO Andy Jassy has framed the move as part of a strategy to streamline operations by removing “redundant layers” within the corporate structure. He has emphasized the transformative potential of AI to enhance everything from customer engagement to office productivity.

“Our conviction that AI will change every customer experience is starting to play out,” Jassy said during Amazon’s last quarterly earnings call.

The workforce reductions are viewed as a way to cut costs while freeing capital for long-term AI infrastructure investments. The company faces mounting pressure to justify its massive AI expenditures ahead of its next quarterly earnings report this Thursday.

Analysts note that Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s highly profitable cloud division, will be under scrutiny to demonstrate both revenue growth and improved operating margins amid the AI-driven expansion.

While Amazon has not officially commented on the layoffs, its shares closed slightly higher, suggesting investors interpret the move as a sign of fiscal discipline.

The news follows a major AWS outage last week, which disrupted popular internet services for hours. The disruption, caused by a Domain Name System (DNS) issue, affected platforms including Prime Video, Disney+, WhatsApp, Signal, Fortnite, Airbnb, Snapchat, Duolingo, and even some financial institutions, highlighting global dependence on Amazon’s infrastructure.

Although AWS resolved the outage, the incident underscores the widespread impact of technical failures within one of the world’s most critical tech ecosystems.