‘The world is changing’: Amazon announces 14,000 layoffs ahead of the holidays, cites AI innovation

The world’s largest retailer has announced massive job cuts before the holidays.

On Tuesday, Amazon said in a memo to staff that it will lay off 14,000 employees. Here’s what you need to know about the Amazon layoffs, and why these aren’t the last jobs that Amazon will likely cut in the future.

What’s happened?

On Tuesday, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, announced the company was eliminating “approximately 14,000” positions. Galetti sent a memo about the layoffs to Amazon employees, which was then published to the Amazon website.

The headcount reduction of 14,000 positions is less than the up to 30,000 job cuts that Reuters had reported in the hours before Galetti’s memo was made public. However, it still represents one of the largest single layoff rounds of 2025. It also comes just days after competitor Target announced it was laying off 1,800 corporate roles.

Amazon did not say which 14,000 jobs would be eliminated, but the memo specified that they would be “corporate workforce” positions, suggesting Amazon’s warehouse workforce is safe from the cuts.

But that is to be expected as Amazon would be unlikely to reduce its warehouse staff ahead of the busy holiday season.

According to PitchBook, Amazon has a total workforce of more than 1.5 million employees.

Why is Amazon laying off 14,000 employees?

In the memo, Galetti stated that the layoffs are a continuation of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s September 2024 directive to strengthen Amazon’s culture and teams.

In 2024, that strengthening resulted in a return-to-office (RTO) mandate. In 2025, strengthening your culture apparently means cutting your workforce.

“The reductions we’re sharing today,” Galetti’s memo states, “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 and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”

But Galetti continued, explaining that the main driver for the cuts is—you guessed it—artificial intelligence.

“The world is changing quickly,” Galetti said. “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones).”

Because of this, Galetti said that Amazon is convinced it needs to become a leaner company with “fewer layers.”

The “layers” here are people.

Amazon could cut even more jobs next year

While the 14,000 job cuts Amazon announced today are devastating to the workers and their families who are affected, Amazon may not be done cutting positions. 

In the memo, Galetti added that “looking ahead to 2026,” Amazon expects to hire in key areas, “while also finding additional places we can remove layers.”

How has Amazon’s stock price reacted?

While the layoffs are devastating to the workers losing their jobs, Wall Street often sees layoffs as a good thing. That’s because laying off a large number of workers is usually the fastest way for a company to cut costs and thus increase its bottom line.

But if Amazon was hoping to see a stock price boost from its layoff announcements this morning, the company is going to be disappointed.

As of this writing, Amazon’s stock price (Nasdaq: AMZN) is relatively flat in premarket trading. It’s up just half a percent to around $228.22 per share.

As a matter of fact, Amazon’s stock price for 2025 hasn’t moved much. Year to date, the company’s share price is up just 3.4%. That’s compared to the Nasdaq’s 21% gain in the same period.

Amazon is expected to share its third-quarter 2025 financial results on Thursday, October 30.

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