CNBC: Amazon will conduct the largest layoffs in its history for the sake of efficiency

On Tuesday, October 28, the leader of online commerce in the U.S. Amazon will begin the largest corporate staff cuts in the history of the company, CNBC reported citing sources. The layoffs will affect almost all divisions, the channel said.

According to Reuters sources, Amazon plans to lay off up to 30,000 white-collar employees in order to cut corporate jobs. The agency called it the company's biggest cuts since the end of 2022, a figure that represents a small percentage of the company's total workforce (1.55 million) but reaches nearly 10% of the number of specifically corporate employees (350,000), the agency noted.

Amazon declined to comment to CNBC and Reuters. The IT giant's shares rose 1.23% in main trading on Oct. 27, adding another 0.33% in extended trading.

The cuts were required by Amazon to cut costs, and the company is also struggling with the effects of over-hiring during the pandemic, Reuters wrote, citing sources. The company has already conducted several rounds of layoffs since 2022, resulting in more than 27,000 layoffs, CNBC noted. In 2025, the cuts affected AWS's cloud division, retail business, communications and the team responsible for devices, the channel added.

The cost-cutting campaign was launched by Amazon CEO Andy Jesse, who will head the company in 2021. He is also restructuring to simplify the corporate structure by reducing the number of managers and "flattening hierarchies," CNBC reported.

In June, Jesse said Amazon's headcount could shrink even further due to the introduction of generative AI. "We will need fewer people for some of our current tasks and more for new types of work," he wrote in an internal memo to employees. - It's hard to accurately predict the scale of the change, but we expect it to reduce our corporate headcount in the coming years."

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