Amazon has eliminated around 1,000 white-collar roles across its Stores business, with employees in India, the United States and the United Kingdom among those affected, as the ecommerce company restructures its retail operations while increasing investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The job cuts primarily affect Amazon’s Stores division, which operates the company’s main ecommerce business. Amazon confirmed the reduction and said the changes were intended to align the organisation with its priorities. “We’ve adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities,” a company spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
The affected functions include customer service and selling partner services, based on internal Slack posts reviewed by Reuters. Employees in India, the US and the UK received notices about the layoffs. The report did not specify how many of the approximately 1,000 affected roles were located in India.
The cuts were reported as Amazon’s two-day Prime Big Deal Days shopping event was under way. The sale began on Tuesday and offered discounts across several product categories, placing the workforce reduction alongside one of the company’s major retail operations.
The latest reduction follows a broader series of job cuts at Amazon. More than 30,000 layoffs began last year and continued into January. Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos said in a Fox News interview aired on Wednesday that earlier reductions were partly linked to hiring growth during the Covid-19 pandemic, when consumers stayed home and online orders surged.
“People were staying home and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us, by the way,” Bezos said. “The whole team worked extremely hard and did so much, but we really grew our head count.”
The restructuring comes as Amazon plans to increase spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company is preparing to spend a record $220 billion on data centres, chips and other infrastructure supporting AI and related operations. Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy has said the spending will be directed predominantly towards Amazon Web Services, with most of the investment expected to support AI workloads.
Amazon has also approached former employees, including some who were laid off, about roles in artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud computing, according to a Business Insider report cited in the supplied coverage. Recruiter emails reviewed by the publication showed that Amazon’s AI agent organisation contacted former employees in August about openings and, in some cases, offered an expedited interview process.
Amazon said rehiring former employees is a longstanding companywide practice. Company spokeswoman Haley Silva said former employees, including those who had been laid off, could be considered for open positions depending on current hiring needs. She said the outreach was not specifically aimed at employees who had left because of Amazon’s return-to-office policy.
