Amazon confirmed on 28 January 2026 that it will lay off around 16,000 employees globally, with the impact concentrated mainly in the United States. The announcement came in a message signed by Beth Galetti, senior vice-president, People Experience and Technology, and forms part of a process launched in October 2025 to “streamline the organisation” by reducing hierarchical layers and bureaucracy. The move brings the total number of announced cuts to 30,000 in three months, the largest reduction in corporate staff so far disclosed by the company in recent years, surpassing the 2022–2023 wave of around 27,000 positions. The areas affected include cross-functional teams and divisions with a high concentration of skilled staff, with impacts on Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video, human resources, Audible, and the Devices and Services division.
In Europe, the cuts mainly affect Spain, with around 920 positions in offices in Madrid and Barcelona following union negotiations, Luxembourg with up to 470 positions, and other countries including Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. US employees will be given ninety days to seek internal positions, followed by severance packages, outplacement services and healthcare support. At the same time, Amazon announced the closure of all 57 Amazon Fresh stores and 15 Amazon Go outlets, consolidating investment in Whole Foods Market, where more than 100 new openings are planned.
The official message centres on organisational restructuring. Amazon says it wants to operate with a “flat” structure, greater individual accountability and faster decision-making processes. A significant share of the eliminated roles reportedly involves middle management, in line with chief executive Andy Jassy’s stated goal of reducing management layers that built up during the pandemic expansion. According to several US sources, Jassy is seen as the driving force behind a “cultural reset” designed to make Amazon more agile at a time when artificial intelligence is compressing the time and cost of many coordination, analysis and planning activities.
The scale of the cuts must also be read against the composition of the workforce. The 30,000 departures announced between October 2025 and January 2026 represent around 10% of the corporate and technology workforce, estimated at roughly 350,000 people, but less than 2% of the total workforce, which exceeds 1.57 million employees globally. The vast majority are employed in operational and warehouse activities, which are not affected by this latest round of cuts, despite an acceleration in automation and robotics across operations.
The timing of the layoffs coincides with a phase of robust investment in artificial intelligence and infrastructure. The scale of investment is estimated at $125 billion in 2025 (around €115 billion), largely directed towards data centres and cloud capacity, with further growth expected in 2026. Reuters, citing the letter to shareholders, links Jassy’s strategy to a simple principle: if artificial intelligence reshapes every customer interaction, investment must be “broad and deep”. In parallel, Amazon is pushing ahead with proprietary chips for artificial intelligence workloads and with its supplier ecosystem, including collaboration with artificial intelligence developer Anthropic.
