'Difficult Decision': Amazon Announces a New Round of Layoffs. Here Are the Roles Affected. Amazon's latest layoffs affect two specific departments.

By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut

Key Takeaways

  • Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is laying off dozens of workers in its communications and sustainability departments.
  • Amazon more than doubled its workforce from 2019 to 2021, then announced layoffs affecting 27,000 people in 2022 and 2023.

Amazon is making dozens of job cuts in its communications and sustainability divisions, the e-commerce giant announced.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser told Bloomberg that the company was making changes to "move faster, increase ownership, strengthen our culture, and bring teams closer to customers."

"As part of these changes, we've made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles," Glasser wrote in an emailed statement. "We don't make these decisions lightly, and we're committed to supporting affected employees through their transitions."

Related: 'Flubbed Completely': A Company Mistakenly Sent a Picture of Cartoon Duck to Employees When Laying Them Off

Drew Herdener, Amazon's senior vice president of communications and corporate responsibility, said in an internal note to staff viewed by CNBC that the roles eliminated were too narrow in scope or added layers that weren't needed.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Photo by Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon more than doubled its workforce, growing from 798,000 employees in the fourth quarter of 2019 to more than 1.6 million by 2021.

Then Amazon laid off 27,000 people in 2022 and 2023 across various divisions, including its cloud computing and advertising units.

After the sweeping job cuts, in the third quarter of 2024, Amazon had about 1.5 million full-time and part-time workers. The company let go of 200 employees on its North America stores team earlier this month.

Amazon announced a strict return-to-office (RTO) policy in September for its 350,000 corporate employees, mandating that they work in the office five days per week instead of working a hybrid schedule.

In November, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reassured employees that the RTO mandate was not "a backdoor layoff" but rather a way for Amazon to strengthen its culture.

Amazon's decision arrives a day after another big tech company saw workers banding together to ask company leaders for more job security. Over 1,300 Google employees signed a petition earlier this week requesting that CEO Sundar Pichai offer a guaranteed minimum severance package, buyouts before layoffs, and no performance review quotas.

Related: Over 1,300 Google Employees Have Signed a New Petition Asking For Job Security

Amazon layoffs aren't the first tech layoffs to happen this year. According to Layoffs.fyi, a layoffs tracker, 24 tech companies have already let go of 5,641 employees so far this year (in January).

Microsoft is reportedly about to start cutting positions soon, while Meta is laying off more than 3,000 employees by February 10.

Sherin Shibu

Entrepreneur Staff

News Reporter

Sherin Shibu is a business news reporter at Entrepreneur.com. She previously worked for PCMag, Business Insider, The Messenger, and ZDNET as a reporter and copyeditor. Her areas of coverage encompass tech, business, strategy, finance, and even space. She is a Columbia University graduate.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Business News

'Unprecedented in Our 53-Year History': Southwest Airlines Announces Its First Mass Layoffs Ever

The airline is eliminating 15% of its corporate workforce, including many in senior leadership positions.

Side Hustle

This 30-Year-Old's $6,000-a-Month Side Hustle Started Making Money 'Immediately' — But He's Not Quitting His Day Job

Derrick Mathy works in orthopedic surgical device sales and is on a mission to bring people together in real life.

Franchise

Sam The Concrete Man is North America's #1 Residential Concrete Franchise

Sam The Concrete Man franchisees have the flexibility of working from home in the high demand residential concrete industry.

Business Ideas

70 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2025

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2025.

Business News

Elon Musk's xAI Claims Its New Grok 3 AI Is Better Than ChatGPT and DeepSeek: 'Seeing the Beginnings of Creativity'

xAI debuted the new AI on Monday, claiming it has 10 times the computational power of Grok 2.

Business Models

How This Luxury Retail Store Builds 100-Year-Relationships with Its Customers

Brent Polacheck, owner of Polacheck's Jewelers, is proving that in an era of instant gratification, the art of generational relationship-building still drives retail success.