Amazon plans mass white collar job cull
A tech giant is set to execute its largest jobs cull since 2022, with up to 8 per cent of its corporate workforce facing redundancy.
Tech and retail giant Amazon is planning to shed tens of thousands of corporate jobs in the US, more than 12 months on from its boss promising to cut “bureaucracy”.
Up to 30,000 white collar roles are on the chopping block at the multi-trillion-dollar company, according to source who spoke to Reuters.
That would account for about 8 per cent of Amazon’s 350,000 corporate staff but would be a drop in its 1.55 million global workforce.
It’s understood the cuts will not affect staff at Amazon Australia, which has over 7000 employees nationwide across various roles including corporate, fulfilment, and Amazon Web Services.
Amazon has been contacted for comment.
Chief executive Andy Jassy has previously spoken about plans to have “fewer managers” and “decrease bureaucracy” in the organisation.
Mr Jassy has also told of his desire for Amazon to “operate like the world’s largest start-up”.
He set up a “Bureaucracy Mailbox” last September to which he suggested staff send any examples of “unnecessary process that’s crept in and we can root out”.
In June Mr Jassy also wrote about how he expected generative artificial intelligence (AI) to impact on the workforce in “the next few years”.
“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” he wrote.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.
“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
Amazon’s share price rose 1.23 per cent as of Tuesday morning, AEDT, in the wake of the news to US$226.97 ($346).
The proposed job cuts would be the largest Amazon has undertaken since late 2022 when it started to slash 27,000 roles.
They would also represent the largest tech industry lay-offs since 2020, according to Layoffs.fyi which tracks job losses.
However, Amazon announced earlier this month it planned to hire 250,000 seasonal holiday workers in the US ahead of the Christmas period.
Layoffs.fyi shows more than 200 tech companies have laid off about 98,000 employees since the start of the 2025.
Microsoft has laid off about 15,000 people, while Meta last week shed 600 jobs within its artificial intelligence unit.
Google cut more than 100 design-related roles in its cloud unit this month, and Salesforce
laid off 4000 customer support staff, pointing to its increasing AI adoption.
Intel has cuts 22,000 jobs this year, the most of any listed by Layoffs.fyi.
Originally published as Amazon plans mass white collar job cull
