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After an internal email referencing layoffs was mistakenly sent to staff, Amazon has confirmed what seemed to be its worst kept secret, that it will eliminate 16,000 jobs globally as part of an ongoing restructuring program.
The technology giant said the reductions are aimed at removing bureaucracy and strengthening the organization.
The draft email was circulated late Tuesday to employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica before being quickly withdrawn. It referred to job losses already taking place and framed the cuts as part of a broader effort to improve speed and accountability across the business. Employees had not yet been formally notified at the time.
Early Wednesday, Amazon formally announced the job reductions. The company has not disclosed which roles or regions will be affected. Amazon employs about 1.5 million people worldwide, including roughly 350,000 in corporate positions.
Leadership points to phased restructuring
Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, said the company was not planning frequent rounds of large-scale job cuts. She referenced the 14,000 corporate roles eliminated in October and said organizational changes were staggered.
“While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now,” Galetti said. She added that Amazon was not planning to make “broad reductions every few months.”
The mistaken email was connected to a calendar invitation titled “Send project Dawn email,” an apparent reference to the internal code name for the redundancy process. The message, drafted by Colleen Aubrey, a Senior Vice President at Amazon Web Services, said the cuts were “a continuation of the work we’ve been doing for more than a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy, so that we can move faster for customers.”
“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” the email added. “These decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.”
Employee expectations and severance terms
The layoffs had been anticipated by staff for several weeks, according to a former employee who asked not to be identified. The individual said there was a broad expectation internally that leadership aimed to reduce around 30,000 roles in total, following earlier redundancy rounds. That former employee left Amazon during job cuts announced in October.
Affected workers were invited to apply for other open roles within the company, although available positions were limited. Employees who did not transition to new roles received severance packages based on their length of service.
Since Jeff Bezos stepped down as chief executive four years ago, Andy Jassy has overseen repeated cost-cutting efforts and changes to workplace expectations. Amazon now requires employees to work in the office five days a week, making it one of the few large technology companies to mandate full-time in-person attendance.
Earlier this week, Amazon also announced plans to close its remaining Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go grocery stores while expanding its Whole Foods Market business.
