Months after laying off some employees associated with Amazon Web Services and Wondery podcast division, Amazon is planning to cut 15% of its human resources staff in a new wave of layoffs. According to Fortune, the company has taken the decision as part of its shifted focus towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud operations.
In addition, Amazon also plans to hire 2,50,000 seasonal workers for the holiday season across its US warehouses. The company in a statement said that temporary workers will earn $19 per hour on average, and permanent roles will pay $23 per hour on average. The 2,50,000 workers on holiday hire is unchanged from the previous two years, a Bloomberg report noted.
Internally, the HR department is known as the People eXperience and Technology (PXT) team, and it includes the recruiting team, technology staff and other traditional HR roles. Reports mention that there are over 10,000 employees globally in this wing but there is no clarity on the exact number of employees that will be removed and also the exact time of their removal. Apart from HR, some other employees from the Amazon core consumer business could also be affected in the next layoff wave.
Earlier, a report mentioned that Amazon had allocated $100 billion for capital investments in AI and cloud infrastructure in 2025. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has stressed on AI’s central role in Amazon’s future. It may be recalled that the company had laid off some employees in the consumer devices unit, Wondery podcast division and Amazon Web Services.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has emphasized AI’s central role in Amazon’s future, driving efficiency and automation. The next wave of layoffs has been planned as the company thinks switching to the AI modules would increase efficiency which subsequently, would result in reduced need for corporate workforce. In 2023, Jassy headed the company when it witnessed the largest layoffs of nearly 27,000 corporate roles. The change was imminent as not just Amazon, but several other companies also made staff cuts during the pandemic.
In an official mail, which was also published on Amazon’s corporate blog, “Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company.” He also mentioned that not everyone in the company will be accommodated when the changes happen. “We expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” his email added.
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