By Tom Ozimek

Amazon said on Jan. 28 it will eliminate about 16,000 roles across the company as part of an ongoing restructuring effort aimed at flattening management layers, reducing bureaucracy, and redirecting resources toward artificial intelligence (AI) and other strategic priorities.

The cuts were outlined in an internal memo to staff from Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, who said the changes affect teams that had not completed earlier rounds of reorganization announced in the fall of 2025.

“The reductions we are making today will impact approximately 16,000 roles across Amazon,” Galetti wrote in the memo, now published on the company’s corporate website.

She said that the company was “working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted.”

Galetti said most U.S.-based employees whose roles are eliminated will be given 90 days to seek another position within Amazon and that timelines will vary internationally based on local labor laws. Employees who do not secure a new role internally, or who choose not to pursue one, will receive severance pay, outplacement services, and health insurance benefits where applicable.

“I recognize this is difficult news, which is why I’m sharing what’s happening and why,” Galetti wrote.

Despite the cuts, Amazon will continue hiring and investing in priority areas, Galetti said. She also said that the reduction does not signal a cycle of recurring layoffs and that teams will keep adjusting structure and pace as needed to stay competitive in a fast-changing environment.

“We’re still in the early stages of building every one of our businesses and there’s significant opportunity ahead,” she wrote.

Amazon employs about 1.56 million people globally, according to the company’s first-quarter earnings report for 2025.

Continuation of October Layoffs

Amazon’s announcement builds on a major restructuring disclosed in late October 2025, when Amazon said it would eliminate about 14,000 corporate positions, or 4 percent of Amazon’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees.

At the time, Galetti described the move as part of an effort to make the company “stronger, faster, and more innovative,” while operating “like the world’s largest startup.”

An Amazon employee loads packages onto a truck at an Amazon DAX7 delivery station in South Gate, Calif., on July 16, 2024. The Canadian Press/AP-Richard Vogel

“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets,” she wrote in the October memo.

The restructuring reflects a philosophy championed by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who has repeatedly urged the company to preserve its entrepreneurial culture despite its vast scale.

In internal messages throughout 2024 and 2025, Jassy criticized bureaucratic bloat and emphasized “scrappiness and frugality” as core Amazon values. He has argued that fewer management layers and streamlined operations more broadly are key for the retail and cloud-computing giant to maintain innovative momentum and stay competitive.

“We need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business,” Galetti wrote in her October memo, echoing Jassy’s guidance.

In her latest announcement, Galetti said teams will keep reviewing how they are structured, how quickly they move, and their ability to innovate.

“That’s never been more important than it is today in a world that’s changing faster than ever,” she said.

Pivot Toward Artificial Intelligence

Amazon’s job cuts come as part of a broader focus on AI-driven efficiencies.

Galetti, in her October memo, called AI “the most transformative technology … since the Internet,” saying the restructuring would free up capital and talent for Amazon’s biggest bets, particularly in AI.

Jassy has said Amazon is already developing more than 1,000 generative AI applications and is investing heavily in “agentic AI,” autonomous software systems capable of carrying out complex tasks such as research, coding, and workflow automation.

Amazon is also expanding the infrastructure needed to support those ambitions.

A technician works at an Amazon Web Services AI data center in New Carlisle, Ind., on Oct. 2, 2025. Noah Berger for AWS/Reuters

Earlier this year, the company announced plans to spend roughly $10 billion each on new data centers in North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, and Mississippi to support Amazon Web Services, the cloud unit that underpins much of its AI development.

Amazon’s Jan. 28 announcement comes amid a mixed picture for the U.S. labor market.

Although hiring has slowed, layoffs have remained relatively muted to start 2026, reinforcing what some economists describe as a “low-fire, no-hire” environment.

Initial jobless claims have hovered near historic lows of about 200,000, while U.S. private employers added an average of 7,750 jobs per week in the four weeks ending Jan. 3, according to payroll processor ADP, down slightly from the previous period.

Several large companies have announced significant workforce reductions. UPS said on Jan. 27 that it plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs this year as it winds down its delivery partnership with Amazon and accelerates automation. The carrier said the move would help save about $3 billion and improve margins.

Andrew Moran contributed to this report.