Name: Amazon cuts 14,000 jobs, prepares for wide adoption of AI
Uploaded: 2025-10-28T18:05:36.438Z
Duration: 3 min 20 s
Description: Online retail giant Amazon has announced it will cut about 14,000 corporate jobs as the company ramps up spending on artificial intelligence while cutting costs elsewhere.

Online retail giant Amazon has announced it will cut about 14,000 corporate jobs as the company ramps up spending on artificial intelligence while cutting costs elsewhere.

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Amazon has announced it will cut 14,000 corporate jobs as part of a restructuring effort linked to the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. The company stated that the layoffs are intended to create a leaner organization with fewer layers, allowing for faster decision-making and improved efficiency.

The job cuts represent about 4% of Amazon's corporate workforce, though the company did not specify which geographic regions would be most affected. Most impacted employees will have 90 days to seek new roles within the company. Amazon's leadership has cited AI as a key driver behind the changes, with expectations that automation will continue to reshape its workforce in the coming years.

Amazon cuts 14,000 jobs, prepares for wide adoption of AI

Well, online retail giant Amazon announced mass layoffs today. It is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs as it prepares for the arrival of AI technology. The company has been restructuring its workforce across multiple divisions in recent months. The CBC's Anis Heidari is following the story for us from Calgary. He joins me now. Hey, Anis. So what details do we have about Amazon and these cuts? The 14,000 jobs are on the corporate side of the company. We don't have specific ideas as to where they are geographically. So we don't know how many of these jobs might be in Canada. Amazon didn't provide those details when CBC News asked. The company's current CEO, who took that job in 2021, he's generally regarded, though, to be aggressively cutting costs at Amazon. And in an online post we did hear from the company, part of what they wrote was this. We are convinced that we need to be organized more leanly with fewer layers and more ownership to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business. So I mean, you can deconstruct some of that corporate language there into, you know, we want fewer people working here to make it easier for us to get stuff done, at least from Amazon's perspective. Now, these job cuts won't take effect right away. There are reports that people at the company are being told today if they'll be losing their jobs. Most workers will be given 90 days to look for a new position internally. It's also important to keep in mind these 14,000 jobs come out of more than 350,000 corporate employees and Amazon's total global workforce, when you take in everyone who works for them, more than one and a half million people. So when we look at their corporate roles alone, you know, that's things like HR or people who maybe work at desks in some way. That's about a 4% reduction in those employees. This is not nothing, though. Amazon is still a huge global employer. And it's also not nothing, too, when you look at AI technology as what is sort of perhaps triggering some of this move here. You touched on this a little bit about why Amazon is making this move. What more do we know? We do know that artificial intelligence is a driver of these job cuts, at least from what we've seen in statements from Amazon, and also what they've been saying over the past few months. So earlier this year, the CEO had said he expected generative AI would reduce Amazon's corporate workforce, the folks who they are cutting right now. And earlier this year, he had said he expected AI would cut that workforce within the next few years. In emails to employees, the company has said it's reducing bureaucracy and it's shifting resources around through these cuts. Here's how a U.S.-based tech recruiter sees things. Big tech is creating headcount for horsepower, being able to leverage AI into our day-to-day jobs, whether it's HR or legal or engineering, has really upgraded efficiency. We're also going to see financial results for the last quarter from Amazon on Thursday. So there could be some more clues in there about what parts of the company are growing, what parts are making money, what parts maybe aren't making money, and where they're going to be putting their investments in the future as well. Thanks for this, Anis. That is the CBC's Anis Heidari in Calgary.

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Amazon cuts 14,000 jobs, prepares for wide adoption of AI

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