[Reuters] Exclusive: Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-targets-many-30000-corporate-job-cuts-sources-say-2025-10-27/

Amazon is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs beginning Tuesday, as the company works to pare expenses and compensate for overhiring during the peak demand of the pandemic, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The figure represents a small percentage of Amazon’s 1.55 million total employees, but nearly 10% of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees. This would represent the largest job cut at Amazon since around 27,000 jobs were eliminated starting in late 2022.

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Replacements have already been onboarded.

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Don’t let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!

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Just give Elon $1 Trillion to bring robots to market - capture 1-2% early on and then ask for $2 Trillion a decade later to move into next gen Ai

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Eh… I wouldn’t go that far. These people that were just let go I am sure were treated like crap and lied to for the benefit of the stock price.

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Depends on the department honestly. Now if it’s Kate, bye bye!

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23% seems like a lot of corporate positions. :man_shrugging:

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It is likely you could find many of the people who will be let go on Linkedin,

Read some of the profiles and determine how much sympathy is appropriate.

First I came to know of Kate was her profile on Linedin. No reason to abandon that first impression.

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In general, I don’t think this is a good sign, adding 30k people to the unemployment numbers.

And for Amazon specifically, they’re just moving the cards around to cover up weaknesses:

Amazon’s largest profit center, cloud computing unit AWS, reported second-quarter sales of $30.9 billion, a 17.5% increase that was well below gains of 39% for Microsoft’s (MSFT.O), opens new tab Azure and of 32% for Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google Cloud.

At least they admitted this part:

A program begun early this year to bring employees back in the office five days per week, among tech’s most stringent, has failed to generate sufficient attrition

Aha, so RTO was not about productivity amd team-building. It was 100% a weasel weed-out move.

Thankfully, many of us saw straight through the doublespeak and were not cheerleading for RTO as some greater good initiative.

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Maybe they can bring someone in at the top who understands ecommerce and the value of a strong third-party seller program. :rofl:

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At some point, one has to switch from kool-aid to bourbon?

:smirking_face:

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On a positive note, my AI girlfriend let me pick where to go for dinner without any guilt trip.
Extra bonus, she is first generation AI, which means she does not have a mother I have to garner favor from to keep my weekends and holidays safe and sane.

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IMO Andy is the perfect CEO for Amazon, at this time.

He understands how to run a cash cow, and is running the company as one.

He understands the corporate culture which prizes ambitious and aggressive behavior leads to middle managers fighting to grow their mini-empires, and supports taking actions like these layoffs when the managers have failed to deliver adequate returns on investment.

Pandemic hiring blitz was just middle management run wild for almost all of the corporate positions.

The employees who are worth a **** who are being laid off will find good employment and the losers probably will too though not as well compensated and with little authority.

I suspect that no one who receives a layoff notice will be surprised, but few will admit they expected it.

I am certain, the needs and interests of third-party sellers were irrelevant to the layoff decision. And probably, were really irrelevant.

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I am curious how layoffs clash with the variously worded non-non-compete documents middle and upper management workers sign to work at Amazon.

seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-accused-of-violating-washingtons-ban-on-noncompete-agreements/

It would kind of suck to get laid off then prevented from working in the same or similar field.

"That clause prohibited employees from accepting or soliciting business from any customer of any product or service they worked on, supported or received confidential information about during their last 18 months at Amazon. It also prevented employees from encouraging customers or business partners to stop doing business with Amazon. "

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Maybe its a CA thing - but non-competes are enforceable?

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Definitely not in California. Yet another reason to live and work here. But the article from Seattle times said Amazon was re-wording things to make them restrictive but not considered a “non-compete” based on Washington laws

“The only time when noncompete agreements are allowed in California is in the sale of a business-that is, someone who buys a business from someone else, can require that the seller not compete with the buyer, as a condition of the sale.”

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One has to consider carefully how to interpret a news story based on a proposed class action suit by two low level employees.

Especially since neither of these employees are upper or middle management, or likely to be involved in any sales or solicitation other than over the counter retail sales.

Which one of these employees has a relative at the law firm?

How little will it cost to settle this suit?

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This part is what seems a bit egregious to me..
“The agreements also required the employees to share the document, and its nonsolicitation clause, with any prospective new employer, business partner or investor before accepting a new job.”
This alone could make HR professionals say “nope, not worth the tiny risk compared to anyone else.”
I get that low level employees may not be subject to it, then if so, it should only be signed or in a policy explicitly for those employees, not all employees.

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If it doesn’t apply, they do not have to provide it, do they?

Seems to me that these folks and their lawyer(s) are just as despicable as Amazon and their lawyers and “a plague on both their houses”/

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If not clearly defined in the signed policy how does one know if they are subject to it or not?

If I had to pick, I would say a lawyer is taking advantage of Amazon’s ineptitude for a paycheck. I support it only from the historical experience of Amazon vaguely wording many other policies for their benefit that they can duck in and out of at their convenience. I prefer my labor laws and policies to be black and white, and I typically don’t agree to vague polices unless there is no choice, like selling on Amazon.
If these policies were not part of employment, there would be no case… therefore… why was it in the employee’s employment documentation in the first place?
Either Amazon ineptitude or opportunity for malfeasance.

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