Amazon layoffs hit around 16,000 employees amid restructuring push

Amazon has confirmed another major round of job cuts, with around 16,000 employees affected across the company. Senior leadership described the amazon layoffs as part of a longer-term restructuring effort, while employees and external observers said the process felt abrupt and harsh.

Amazon leadership explains restructuring plan

The latest amazon layoffs were announced by Beth Galetti, senior vice president of People Experience and Technology at Amazon. She said the company has been working to reduce layers, increase ownership and remove bureaucracy. According to Galetti, some teams completed these changes last year, while others finished more recently.

She added that Amazon would continue hiring in strategic areas and stressed that frequent, broad rounds of layoffs were not part of the company’s plan.

Support offered to affected employees

For employees impacted in the United States, Amazon said those affected by the amazon layoffs would be given a 90-day window to apply for other internal roles. The company is also offering severance pay, continued health benefits and job placement support for those who leave.

Despite these measures, several employees said the process felt impersonal and sudden.

Employees share personal accounts

On LinkedIn, Amazon Web Services software development engineer Dwijen Desai said he was laid off after nearly six years at the company. He said he had worked on what he described as the backbone of the cloud and is now open to work, seeking SDE II roles.

Another employee, senior software development engineer Yi Shen, stated that after almost eight years at Amazon, both he and his entire team were impacted by the latest amazon layoffs.

External criticism of the process

Workforce strategist Amanda Goodall strongly criticised how the amazon layoffs were handled. Writing on X, she said affected employees experienced partially disabled access, erased calendars, locked email inboxes and work alerts continuing even after roles were terminated.

Goodall said the cuts were not performance-based and claimed that top performers and profitable teams were also affected. She added that some layoffs occurred just ahead of vesting periods and that remote workers were among the first impacted, describing the approach as efficient but marked by limited communication and accountability.

The latest amazon layoffs, affecting around 16,000 employees, highlight the gap between Amazon’s stated restructuring goals and the experiences described by workers and critics, raising fresh questions about how such changes are carried out.