The Amazon company plans to lay off between 14000 and 16000 corporate workers worldwide starting from January 27, 2026. This follows the October 2025 job cuts, which eliminated 14000 positions and brought total layoffs to approximately 30000. This represents the largest employee downsizing in Amazon’s company history.
The upcoming layoff at Amazon will affect almost 10 percent of their entire white-collar staff, who currently number approximately 350000 employees. The company will maintain its entire operational workforce, which exceeds 1.57 million employees, because there will be no layoffs for frontline warehouse and fulfillment personnel.
Teams Likely to Be Affected
According to reports, the cuts will mainly affect corporate and managerial positions, which exist in the following departments:
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Amazon Web Services (AWS)
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Prime Video and entertainment teams
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Retail and marketplace operations
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People Experience and Technology (PXT), Amazon’s HR division
This phase will expand its reach beyond the United States to include teams based in India who work in AWS and streaming operations.
Why Amazon Is Cutting Jobs
The CEO of the company, Andy Jassy, explained that they want to reduce their internal barriers to speed up decision-making processes instead of using artificial intelligence to replace human employees. He believes that Amazon needs to maintain its flexibility because its current growth rate has decreased and its competitors have increased. The company implemented 27000 employee reductions between 2022 and 2023 because of similar reasoning.
Impact on Employees
Employees will receive their layoff notifications through email or direct manager calls. The company has previously provided 90 days of paid leave to employees who needed to find internal positions after their layoffs, but it remains uncertain whether they will provide the same assistance this time. Online forums show growing anxiety, with workers reporting stricter performance reviews and rising morale concerns.
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Bigger Tech Industry Trend
Amazon is not the only firm to start its layoff; other Tech giants like Meta and Google are also cutting costs to improve profitability. As per the reports, Amazon’s stock jumped 3% the human impact of these layoffs remains significant as AI continues reshaping the tech workforce.
