Tech business news — Amazon is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs as it races to remove layers of bureaucracy and pour resources into artificial intelligence, marking the e-commerce giant’s second-largest round of layoffs ever and sending a blunt message to white-collar workers everywhere: AI is not coming for your job someday, it is already here.
By Maplestime Business Desk | Toronto, Ontario | October 2025
Sources: Reuters, TechCrunch | Last updated: September 19, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Amazon plans to cut 14,000 corporate jobs — its second-largest layoff round after slashing 22,000 jobs in 2022.
- The company had nearly 1.2 million employees as of October 31, 2024, with more than 360,000 in its corporate division across administrative, sales, and executive roles.
- HR chief Beth Galetti told staff the cuts will make Amazon “even stronger” by shifting resources to its “biggest bets” — mainly AI.
- CEO Andy Jassy said in June that rolling out generative AI and agents would reduce the company’s total corporate workforce over the next few years.
- Reuters reported the company was actually planning to slash up to 30,000 jobs across HR, devices and services, operations, and other departments.
Why Amazon Is Cutting 14,000 Corporate Jobs Now
In a memo shared with employees, Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, wrote that the move is aimed at making the company “even stronger” by shifting resources to invest in its “biggest bets.”
Galetti acknowledged that the decision would be questioned in light of the company’s good performance — and she is right, because on paper this makes no sense. Amazon’s revenue increased 13% to $167.7 billion in the second quarter compared to a year earlier. AWS, its cloud services business, accounted for 18% of total net sales. This is not a company in crisis. It is a company choosing to get leaner while it is winning.
“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 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,” Galetti wrote.
That is corporate-speak for: the world is changing quickly, and we would rather cut now than be forced to cut later.
Andy Jassy Said This Was Coming
Nobody at Amazon should be shocked. Back in June, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo to staff that the company would need fewer employees as it continues to roll out more AI agents.
“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
Translation: AI agents are doing the work that used to require whole teams, and Amazon is reorganizing around that reality.
Follow the Money: $55.6 Billion in AI Infrastructure
The Amazon job cuts make more sense when you look at where the money is going. The company spent $55.6 billion in the first half of its current financial year — primarily on tech infrastructure to support the growth of Amazon Web Services, according to its quarterly report.
That is an astonishing number. Amazon is essentially converting payroll into compute capacity: fewer people, more data centres, more AI services. AWS is the profit engine of the entire company, and the bet is that AI workloads will keep it growing for years.
Related: Amazon to host Prime Big Deals Day sales event on October 7 and 8
Who Is Affected by the Amazon Job Cuts
Reuters reported that the company was planning to slash up to 30,000 jobs across human resources, devices and services, operations, and other departments — which suggests the 14,000 figure may only be the first wave.
The company has already been making smaller cuts across different divisions. In January, Amazon reduced a small number of positions in its Communications and Sustainability departments.
Amazon said it is offering most affected employees 90 days to look for a new role internally, and its recruiters would prioritize internal candidates for new roles within the company. It will also offer severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits, and more to those who cannot move internally.
Galetti wrote that in 2026, the company would continue to remove layers and “realize efficiency gains” while hiring in key areas. In other words: the axe is not done swinging, but AI engineers need not worry about their inboxes.
What the Amazon Job Cuts Mean for Canadian Workers
Amazon is one of Canada’s largest private employers, with corporate offices in Toronto and Vancouver and fulfilment operations across the country. While the announced cuts target corporate roles, the message to Canadian tech workers is unmistakable: the era of endless headcount growth at Big Tech is over, and AI productivity is the new justification for leaner teams.
For anyone in corporate roles — HR, communications, operations, middle management — this is the trend to watch. When the world’s most successful cloud company decides it needs fewer people to grow faster, every other boardroom is paying attention.
Maplestime will provide updates on the Amazon job cuts as announcements are made.
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Do you think Amazon is cutting 14,000 jobs because AI genuinely replaces that work — or is “AI efficiency” just the new cover story for old-fashioned cost-cutting? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Canadian watching the tech job market this weekend.
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