Major layoffs planned at Amazon, upto 15% staff could be affected
- Girikrishna GP
- Oct 17
- 2 min read
The online retailer plans its second wave of corporate job cuts — its corporate functions, including human resources, are in the sights this time, following a report from India Today. The company may shed up to 15 percent of its HR staff as part of a worldwide reorganization aimed at enhancing efficiency and trimming costs.
The restructuring will most likely affect the People eXperience and Technology (PXT) segment, which handles staff recruitment, internal HR technology infrastructure, and staff onboarding. Even though the total staff affected wasn't disclosed, the move is the latest in the company's ongoing process for automating the administration and rationalising the operations.
Inside Amazon’s Restructuring Plans
The Times of India, in its report, indicates the retrenched personnel can be phased out over the next several months, with the first in its sights being the internal HR and corporate support functions.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal also reported that the CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, recently said the growing reliance on AI-powered tools at the company likely meant fewer staff members at the company.
The broader restructuring at the company follows a broader pattern in the tech industry. With large investments in automation, cloud infrastructure, and machine learning, the classical corporate functions, and especially the HR and operations functions, are losing their essentiality.
Why Amazon’s Layoffs Matter
A reflection of the AI shift
The job cuts highlight the way in which automation is retooling customer-facing processes and also internal arrangements. HR processes at Amazon are more and more aided with AI hiring and workflow technologies, which can potentially diminish the need for book-on sites.
Economic prudence
The worldwide tech downturn persists in squeezing margins. The move by Amazon follows other giants such as Google and Intel in reducing personnel in the wake of the restructuring led by AI.
Possible morale effect
Massive HR reductions can have far-reaching effects on company culture. HR departments are often the employee support system; reductions in force in that area can put a damper on morale and heighten uneasiness among workers.
What’s Next for Amazon
Although the level of layoffs is large, commentators point out that this does not necessarily denote financial trouble. Rather, it indicates strategic redeployment, transferring headcount from the usual departments to AI, logistics automation, and cloud infrastructure, where future growth is anticipated. While the company has made no public statements, rumor from the internal comms camp suggests that impacted staff members should be receiving severance and internal relocation opportunities where available. The current restructuring, therefore, signals the tech sector with a clear message: with ascendancy coming the way of AI, the very staff-managing teams are no exception.
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