Amazon axes 14,000 desk jobs in AI-powered slimming plan
- Reference: 1761651218
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/10/28/amazon_14000_jobs_cut/
- Source link:
In a [1]public statement , Beth Galetti, Amazon's senior vice president of People Experience and Technology, said the global layoffs were part of a plan to make the corporation "organized more leanly" and able to move faster as AI transforms every part of its business.
Tech industry grad hiring crashes 46% as bots do junior work [2]READ MORE
"This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the internet," she wrote, claiming that automation and faster decision-making would allow Amazon to "innovate much faster than ever before."
The cuts, announced on Tuesday, will affect staff across global corporate teams, including HR, devices, communications, and some AWS support roles, according to [3]Reuters , which initially reported that Amazon planned to ax as many as 30,000 staffers.
Managers began notifying affected employees this week following internal briefings on how to handle the process.
[4]
Amazon said it is "working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted," offering most employees 90 days to find a new internal position and giving priority to internal candidates in recruitment.
[5]
[6]
Those unable or unwilling to stay on will receive severance pay, outplacement support, health insurance coverage, and other benefits, according to Amazon.
Amazon has over 350,000 corporate employees, according to [7]a 2024 filing with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [PDF], meaning the reductions represent about 5 percent of its white-collar workforce. While the company insists its businesses are performing well, the move underlines how even the most profitable tech giants are reorganizing for the AI era.
[8]
The reduction marks one of Amazon's largest culls since 2023, when it [9]axed around 27,000 roles over the space of three months.
In June, CEO Andy Jassy [10]foreshadowed the move , telling employees that efficiency gains from artificial intelligence would eventually allow Amazon to operate with a smaller human workforce. Galetti's latest note puts that prediction into motion.
The announcement also comes amid extraordinary investment elsewhere. Recent figures revealed that [11]Amazon's annual capital expenditure for datacenters has now topped $100 billion – roughly comparable to Costa Rica's entire GDP and greater than that of Luxembourg or Lithuania.
[12]Managers are throwing entry-level workers under the bus in race to adopt AI
[13]Many employees are using AI to create 'workslop,' Stanford study says
[14]Salesforce sacrifices 4,000 support jobs on the altar of AI
[15]Senate report says AI will take 97M US jobs in the next 10 years, but those numbers come from ChatGPT
That spending spree highlights the shifting economics of Big Tech. While investments in AI infrastructure soar, headcount in corporate and administrative functions is dropping. Amazon has increasingly leaned on internal AI systems to streamline logistics, automate HR processes, and assist with code generation – technology that may now be replacing some of the humans who helped build it.
The timing isn't ideal either. The layoffs arrive just a week after a major [16]AWS outage in the US-East-1 region that took swathes of the internet offline . While the two events aren't directly related, the juxtaposition underscores the challenge of balancing efficiency drives with operational resilience.
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Amazon's keeping quiet on how much cash the cuts will save it, but the goal's plain enough: trim the fat, let the bots take over, and march toward the AI-powered future it's spending billions to build. For thousands of corporate staff, though, that leaner future will mean finding somewhere else to log in. ®
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[1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-workforce-reduction
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/16/uk_tech_grad_jobs/
[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-targets-many-30000-corporate-job-cuts-sources-say-2025-10-27/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aQD2qhC6JDRJmtF5MO83ogAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQD2qhC6JDRJmtF5MO83ogAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQD2qhC6JDRJmtF5MO83ogAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://assets.aboutamazon.com/89/0f/be7269b44b25b166030d7b2bfe27/2024-eeo1-amazon-report.pdf
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQD2qhC6JDRJmtF5MO83ogAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/20/amazon_9000_layoffs/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/18/amazon_ceo_warns_ai_job_cuts/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/14/datacenter_investment/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/10/ai_is_displacing_entrylevel_professionals/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/26/ai_workslop_productivity/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/02/salesforce_4000_jobs_ai/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/06/ai_job_losses_us_senate_report/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/aws_outage_myths_reality/
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQD2qhC6JDRJmtF5MO83ogAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
True. However...
it's perfect for the MBA "shareholder value"-types. "We're improving efficiency", just like the subhead.
Until it doesn't, it all burns, and the C-suite MBA's *still* get their year-end 'performance' bonus regardless.
This is modern "capitalism", really the same old-fashioned 'slave corporatism' from the 1800's but with a new & shiny, glass & aluminium modern facade on the old brick fortress of greed and MONEY.
"Amazon axes 14,000 desk jobs in AI-powered slimming plan"
Well, who is implementing the AI?
If does not implement by itself so manglement are making the decision to sack people and replace them with artificial intelligence. Strangle the people in the decision making process rarely sack themselves unless they are engineering a nice fat pay off as they jump to a new job or retire.
Blaming AI is complete bollocks
AI
"Hey AI, what's the DNS looking like today?"
"It's all green, with a fair chance of orange in the evening in us-east-1 region. Red storm might be possible in eu-west-2."
"Can you deploy cloud seeding, to ensure it stays green overnight?"
"There are 5 R's in strawberry."
"Excuse me?"
"I excuse you."
no shit sherlock
Hope the UK Gov are watching. They were all for the UK being the leader in AI. Well look what happens - jobs are lost
Re: no shit sherlock
The country doesn't have enough power generating capacity for all the imaginary datacentres which the government envisages anyway!
Re: no shit sherlock
Plus they'll just buy into it and send e.g. Google and few hundred million £ rather than investing in UK talent and infrastructure companies.
Re: no shit sherlock
Government AI strategy is like saying we are going to be Pizza superpower, buy buying all the pizzas.
This is complete nonsense and taking tax payers for fools.
Re: no shit sherlock
"This is complete nonsense and taking tax payers for fools."
A strategy that hasn't harmed any politician yet?
Re: no shit sherlock
Labor and Reform are both in on the AI scam though. Put more people out of work, less likely to demand anything as they're scrambling to find ways to keep rent paid. Shock and awe on the proles!
I know what happens next
Many years ago I was working on a conference for DEC. It was around the time of the NT4 launch which was a big deal, apparently.
The show was the usual old marketing bollocks that I had sat through hundred of times before but the guest speaker was surprisingly interesting. He was completely against these mass layoffs as a tool of business advantage. He correctly pointed out that competitors would then usually make the same manoeuvre leaving each company back where they were. The downside is that years of experience and accumulated knowledge made its way to the dole office.
He wasn't the first to notice this. A philosopher from earlier times said "The Very Big Stupid is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D department".
Re: a thing which eating The Future.
Pretty much at the point of spitting out the pips and reaching for the toothpick.
Re: I know what happens next
Meh who cares. The US/UK wants to join the USSR and the empires before them in uselessness for the sake of appeasing the elite (that's often less capable than the average punter), it can die an ignominious death shitting blood on itself.
Who would ever go and work for them or any other company that pulls this kind of crap? They need to learn not to treat people this way. The idea that AI is actually replacing jobs in a meaningful way is utter bullshit. It's a complete fabrication.
I won't be surprised to read that Amazon are losing money at some point. They're not too big to fail and they poisoned their shopping well with all the tat their partner sellers push, along with mixed inventory. I believe this to be the real reason they are laying people off because they can see the decline in their revenue coming, but would rather hoof people out than change their ways to stem it.
It's set in stone my rule to never go and work for a big company, you are a unit, not a person. They don't deserve anyone's time or effort.
I am not a number, I am a free man!
"It's set in stone my rule to never go and work for a big company, you are a unit, not a person".
I was told that "You are just a cost centre number on a spreadsheet and that's why your HR system username is now a number and not a name" at a previous employer when they were taken over by a faceless conglomerate headquartered in a dodgy tax haven.
I took great delight in introducing myself as "129877, White, Head of IT" in the style of POWs and reminded people that I wasn't obliged to provide any more information under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Unsurprisingly I told them where they could stick their job shortly thereafter.
Re: I am not a number, I am a free man!
129877 — Portmeirion would be a bit cramped I imagine with a tad under a hundred and thirty thousand odd souls in the Village. ;)
One imagines they needed to retain the services of an extremely talented surgeon to extract said job.
What happens when AWS goes down?
Does Amazon management go down?
Re: What happens when AWS goes down?
Maybe, but don't worry - they have parachutes. Golden ones.
Re: What happens when AWS goes down?
Given that we're talking about an American tech company in 2025, the "Golden Parachutes" for any managers downsized will likely turn out to be lead parachutes with gold paint. Look great until you try to use them.
It looks like the corporate stooge (Galetti) in this case could have used AI to generate some of the actual text "We’re convicted [sic] that we need to be organised more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business,"
If you can't even be bothered to read through an important message such as this and spot such an obvious error, it points to a general malaise at Amazon where "cheap and shoddy" (e.g. output from Claude) is prioritised over quality work performed by the dreaded meatsacks. After all, it's not like a simple mistake in DNS could bring down large parts of the internet...
AWS outage 2.0 in 3...2...1...
Slimming down the headcount this close to a major, embarrassing outage is cutting it a little close, no?
Corporate greed
The greed of this company never fails to astonish me. Example - when they felt it OK to push adverts upon their Prime subscribers... like Bezos needs the money.
More lies to hide the economic downturn and attempt to keep the AI bubble inflated a bit longer.