Amazon to Slash 14,000 Corporate Jobs. It Warns of More Cuts to Come.

Amazon is preparing to report earnings later this week. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

Key Points

• Amazon plans to cut 14,000 corporate jobs, aiming for efficiency gains while continuing to hire in strategic areas.
• Amazon’s stock rose 0.5% in premarket trading after initial reports suggested potential cuts of up to 30,000 jobs.
• The company has approximately 350,000 corporate employees and 1.2 million warehouse workers globally.

Amazon confirmed Tuesday that it is cutting 14,000 jobs, a day after reports emerged that it was looking to slash as many as 30,000 positions. Shares of Amazon were mostly flat Tuesday morning, after closing higher on Monday.

“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,” Beth Galetti, senior vice president of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, wrote in an employee memo announcing the cuts.

The layoffs were among corporate employees in human resources, cloud computing, advertising, and other business groups, The Wall Street Journal reported.

More cuts are expected as the company zeroes in on “finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains,” Galetti added.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a June blog post that the company “will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”

The e-commerce and cloud computing giant currently has around 350,000 corporate employees plus another 1.2 million warehouse workers, for a total of 1.55 million employees worldwide. Earlier this month, Amazon said it was hiring 250,000 seasonal workers.

Shares of Amazon have risen less than 4% this year, versus the S&P 500’s gain of nearly 17%. It has lagged behind stocks of other tech giants like Alphabet, Microsoft, and Nvidia, which have soared amid growing interest in artificial intelligence.

The company reports quarterly earnings on Thursday.

Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com