Amazon announced plans to lay off 14,000 employees on Tuesday as part of its ongoing cost-cutting measures. The company also indicated plans to invest in its “biggest bets” and hailed the transformative powers of artificial intelligence.
“While this will include reducing in some areas and hiring in others, it will mean an overall reduction in our corporate workforce of approximately 14,000 roles. We’re working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted, including offering most employees 90 days to look for a new role internally (the timing will vary some based on local laws), and our recruiting teams will prioritize internal candidates to help as many people as possible find new roles within Amazon. For our teammates who are unable to find a new role at Amazon or who choose not to look for one, we’ll offer them transition support including severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits, and more,” the company said in a blog post.
Amazon bets big on AI
CEO Andy Jassy, who has aggressively sought to cut costs since becoming CEO in 2021, said that he anticipated generative AI would reduce Amazon’s corporate workforce in the next few years.Jassy said at the time that Amazon had more than 1,000 generative AI services and applications in progress or built, but that figure was a “small fraction” of what it plans to build.Jassy encouraged employees to get on board with the company’s AI plans after it announced plans to invest $10 billion building a campus in North Carolina to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well. Across our businesses, we’re delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results. What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convicted 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,” the post explained.