Amazon to Cut 30,000 Corporate Jobs, Reports Say. The Stock Was Rising.

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

Shares of Amazon closed up 1.2% on Monday amid reports from The Wall Street Journal and Reuters that the company plans to cut up to 30,000 corporate jobs, starting on Tuesday.

The cuts are meant to offset pandemic-era over-hiring, the Reuters report said, citing people familiar with the matter. And they come after Amazon said earlier this month that it was hiring 250,000 seasonal workers.

The Journal said cuts were being targeted across the corporate office, including human resources, cloud computing, advertising, and other business groups.

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.

The company reports quarterly earnings on Thursday.

Amazon didn’t reply to Barron’s request for comment on the cuts, which were first reported by Reuters. However, 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.”

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.

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