Amazon confirmed on October 7th the initiation of a new round of layoffs, affecting multiple teams in the United States, India, and the United Kingdom. Less than 1,000 white-collar employees were impacted, mainly from its core retail business. This round of layoffs comes just a few months after the company previously cut about 30,000 corporate positions. Meanwhile, Amazon is increasing its investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure and has begun contacting some of the previously laid-off employees to offer them new positions in cloud computing and AI services, indicating that there is a shift in the company's internal human resource allocation.
Retail business becomes a focus for layoffs, with customer service, engineering, and platform support positions affected.
This round of layoffs mainly focused on Amazon's Stores retail business department, involving positions in customer service, third-party seller platform support, and engineering technology, among others. The affected employees are distributed across the United States, India, and the United Kingdom. Amazon stated that this adjustment is aimed at reorganizing the Stores departments according to current business priorities, and will provide support to the affected employees during the job restructuring process.
However, the new round of layoffs has also raised concerns among internal employees regarding the stability of their positions in the future. Some employees have inquired about severance compensation, the process for applying for internal positions, and whether the company will issue more layoff notices in the future during internal communications. Some managers have also reduced their business plans for the coming quarters due to concerns that the team structure or business priorities may change again.
It is worth noting that this round of layoffs coincides with Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days major promotional campaign, and the affected teams are part of the company's core retail business, including support and engineering teams.
Previously, about 30,000 jobs were cut, and Amazon continues to reduce management levels.
This round of layoffs is the latest move by Amazon in its ongoing efforts to streamline its organization. From the end of 2025 to January 2026, Amazon has eliminated approximately 30,000 corporate positions. CEO Andy Jassy ( Andy Jassy ) led this reorganization, with main objectives including reducing management levels, simplifying the organizational structure, and lowering operating costs.
Although the scale of this latest round of layoffs is much smaller than previous large-scale adjustments, it covers multiple countries and business teams, indicating that Amazon is still continuously re-evaluating the staffing configurations of different departments.
While the retail department is laying off employees, AWS and AI businesses have begun to recruit again.
In contrast to the continuous downsizing of its traditional business, Amazon is investing more talent and funds in the fields of cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The company has recently begun to contact some former employees, including those affected by previous layoffs, to introduce them to recruitment opportunities within Amazon's cloud computing department AWS and its artificial intelligence business.
This change occurs against the backdrop of Amazon's ongoing expansion of its investment in AI infrastructure. With the construction of AI computing power and related business expansion, the company is adjusting its internal resource allocation, shifting more of its recruitment and investment focus towards cloud computing and the AI sector.
Similar personnel restructuring has also occurred in other large technology companies. Meta cut about 8,000 jobs in May this year, while Microsoft reduced more than 5,000 positions between July and September. At the same time, large technology companies continue to increase their capital expenditures and talent investment in the field of artificial intelligence.
Amazon's latest round of layoffs reflects a common trend in the tech industry: on one hand, companies are cutting costs by reducing certain existing job positions, and on the other hand, they continue to concentrate resources on artificial intelligence infrastructure and related growth areas.
