Thousands of Amazon employees woke up early Tuesday morning to find text messages informing them that they had been fired from their jobs. The American tech giant issued the notifications before workers even arrived at the office.
According to people familiar with the matter and screenshots reviewed by Business Insider, one message asked affected employees to check their personal or work email. Another text instructed them to contact a help desk about their employment status.
The layoffs came after a broader announcement by Amazon that it would cut around 14,000 corporate roles as part of a major restructuring tied to efficiency efforts and increased focus on artificial-intelligence tools.
Many of the impacted US employees worked as retail managers at Amazon. A memo from the company's HR head, Beth Galetti, shared internally via Slack, informed those affected would continue to receive full pay and benefits for 90 days, along with a severance package.
In a separate blog post published on Tuesday, Galetti explained that the reductions were prompted by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. She pointed out that Amazon was making these changes despite the company's strong performance.
"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)," Galetti wrote.
Over the past few years, Amazon has streamlined its operations by reducing layers of management, minimising bureaucracy, tightening spending, revamping performance evaluation and compensation structures and mandating that most corporate employees return to the office five days a week.
These shifts really started following the pandemic, when Amazon's previously rapid expansion began to slow. In response, the company focused on cutting expenses by eliminating unprofitable initiatives and reducing an oversized workforce.
Earlier in the year, Amazon froze hiring within its large retail division. In July, its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, also experienced rounds of layoffs.
Across the tech sector, major companies have been downsizing despite continued strong financial performance. Microsoft revealed plans to cut approximately 15,000 roles in 2025. Meta has taken similar steps, implementing AI-related layoffs and informing employees in its risk division that their positions are being replaced by automation technologies.
