Amazon Plans More Layoffs as Part of 30,000 Job Cuts in 2026

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Amazon is preparing its second major round of layoffs in three months, affecting nearly 10% of its corporate workforce

What did Amazon confirm in October 2026?

Amazon sent layoff notices to employees in its Stores division on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, and confirmed the cuts to reporters on Wednesday, October 7. Business Insider broke the story and Reuters picked it up the following day. Stores is Amazon’s core e-commerce organisation, not its physical retail shops, and the affected teams include customer service, selling partner services, marketplace support and engineering roles inside retail. Employees in the United States, the United Kingdom and India were affected.

Amazon did not publish a headcount. The figure in circulation, fewer than 1,000 corporate roles, comes from a person familiar with the matter cited by Business Insider, and Amazon declined to give a number of its own. That distinction is load bearing. Several outlets have already rounded the same anonymous estimate up to "nearly 1,000" or "around 1,000", while City AM described the total as being in the hundreds with only a handful of roles in the UK. One unnamed source sits behind all of those figures, so the honest range is wide.

An Amazon spokesperson said: "We’re always looking at our team structures to ensure we’re best set up to move fast as we innovate for customers. We’ve adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities." No spokesperson is named in any of the coverage, so the statement belongs to the company rather than to an individual.

There was also no company announcement. Amazon’s own newsroom carried nothing about job reductions for October 6 to 8, 2026, which is a change in pattern. Both the October 2025 and January 2026 rounds arrived as published memos from Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology. This round was confirmed to the press and never posted. That matters when you are trying to work out how large it was, because a confirmation carries no obligation to quantify anything.

Scale is where most coverage loses the thread. Fewer than 1,000 roles is under 0.3 percent of Amazon’s corporate workforce and under 0.06 percent of the roughly 1,595,000 people Amazon reported employing worldwide in its second-quarter 2026 results. The widely quoted 350,000 corporate figure predates the 2025 and 2026 cuts, so the real base today is lower and any percentage built on it is an estimate. The significance of this round is not its size. It is that it happened at all, during Prime Big Deal Days, nine months after Galetti wrote in her January 2026 memo: "Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm, where we announce broad reductions every few months. That’s not our plan." Selling partner services has also now been named in two rounds within five months, after an undisclosed reduction in May 2026.

What did Amazon cut in the devices unit on October 28, 2026?

Three weeks after the Stores round, Amazon cut jobs again on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, this time in its devices and services unit, the group behind Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets and Alexa hardware. Amazon confirmed the cuts after an inquiry from Reuters, and the Reuters report by Greg Bensinger put the figure at about 250 jobs. That number comes from a person familiar with the matter who said no more than 250 roles were affected, mostly in software development. Amazon itself did not give a count.

The company statement followed the same pattern as the Stores round. A spokesperson said Amazon had made "the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles" and that the change would help it "operate more efficiently and better align with our product roadmap." Workers heard by text message and email early Wednesday morning. One message, from Cherie Robinson, a human resources vice president in devices and services, said the decision followed "a thorough review of our structure," according to Reuters.

The timing is awkward for the people affected. The unit had just finished several weeks of launches, including new Kindle e-readers and tablets, and it announced an Alexa-powered alarm clock and photo frame on the same day the notices went out. If you were on one of those teams, the product you shipped this month is the strongest evidence you have for your next interview, so write down what you built, when it launched and which part was yours while the details are fresh.

Two caveats on scale. The 250 is a ceiling from one unnamed source, not a company figure, so it should not be added to the Stores estimate as though both were confirmed totals. Amazon reports third-quarter results after the market closes on Thursday, October 29, 2026, which is the next point at which the company could say more.

Why is there no WARN filing for the October 2026 Amazon cuts?

There is no public filing, and that absence is explainable rather than suspicious. The federal WARN Act is triggered by a threshold of affected employees at a single site, so a sub-1,000 reduction spread thinly across three countries and many offices will not reach it anywhere. The Washington State Employment Security Department WARN list contains no Amazon entries for September or October 2026, and California’s most recent Amazon notices are the August 28, 2026 Bay Area filings, which belong to an earlier round. If filings do appear, expect them in December 2026 or January 2027, because Amazon typically runs a 90-day internal transfer window before separation. For anyone affected, that window is the practical point. It is paid time in which to look.

Amazon 2026 Layoffs Explained

Amazon is about to make one of the biggest workforce reductions in its 30-year history. 

The e-commerce giant is preparing to eliminate 30,000 corporate jobs, with the second wave of layoffs expected to begin in January 2026, according to Reuters. 

This latest round will cut around 16,000 positions, following a similar reduction of 14,000 jobs in October 2025. That totals to its 30,000 workforce reduction plan.

Update: Amazon confirmed on Janaury 28 that these layoffs will affect approximately 16,000 roles across the compan. The company stated that it is taking steps to support employees whose positions are impacted and to help them transition during the process.

Behind these headlines are thousands of software engineers, marketers, HR professionals, and managers, who will need to find new employment. Most of the job cuts last time were engineers. Managerial job roles are also hit hard.

Employees who were laid off in October were given 90 days to either find new positions within Amazon or seek employment elsewhere while remaining on the company payroll. 

“We’re working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted, including offering most employees 90 days to look for a new role internally, and our recruiting teams will prioritize internal candidates to help as many people as possible find new roles within Amazon.”

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These new cuts will begin as early as January 27 or 28.

Here’s where things get interesting. When Amazon first announced layoffs in October, the company attributed them to the rise of AI, saying in an internal message that “this generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet.”

But CEO Andy Jassy confirmed that these layoffs aren’t really about saving money, and they are not even about AI. Instead, he said the problem is excessive bureaucracy and too many layers of management.

As part of the transition plan, Amazon will offer most U.S.-based employees up to 90 days to search for and apply to other internal roles within the companyFor employees who do not secure another role internally, Amazon said it will provide transition assistance, including severance pay andcontinued health insurance coverage where applicable.

Which Jobs are getting cut?

The job cuts will sweep across multiple divisions of Amazon’s corporate operations. Employees in the following areas are expected to be affected:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Retail operations
• Prime Video
• People Experience and Technology

While Amazon employs over 1.5 million workers globally, these cuts specifically target the corporate workforce of approximately 350,000 employees. 

They are the white-collar jobs that Bill Gates has warned that they are under threat in the next 4 to 5 years as AI development progresses.

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The vast majority of Amazon’s employees work in warehouses and fulfillment centers and are not expected to be affected.

Does AI explain the October 2026 Amazon layoffs?

Not on the available evidence, and it is worth being precise about why. Amazon issued no statement linking these cuts to artificial intelligence and no statement ruling it out either. At least one headline has reported a denial, but the article beneath it attributes that reading to the reporter’s own understanding rather than to anything Amazon said. The only verbatim Amazon denial on record is chief executive Andy Jassy’s remark on the third-quarter 2025 earnings call that the cuts were "not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven", which he attributed to culture. That was eleven months before this round, and stretching it to cover October 2026 would be putting words in his mouth.

What can be said without inventing a cause is that the two stories run alongside each other. Amazon raised its 2026 capital spending guidance to roughly $220bn, largely for AI infrastructure, and in late September 2026 its recruiters began approaching former employees, including some it had previously laid off, about AI and cloud roles. The same tension runs through the wider market, and the pattern across employers is set out in our analysis of what the 2025 and 2026 tech layoff data actually shows. Reading a firm cause into Amazon’s silence is the one thing the public record does not support, in either direction.

For anyone caught in this round, the ninety-day internal transfer window is the asset to use first, and it is worth treating as search time rather than waiting time. Export your performance reviews, project metrics and reference contacts before your access ends, because reconstructing all of that from memory afterwards is far harder than saving it now. The sequence that follows, from positioning the departure to working the first interviews, is laid out in our guide to landing a tech job after a layoff.

Bottom Line

As 2025 told us, this is a broader sweeping through the technology sector and corporate America. What makes Amazon’s approach notable is the scale. 30,000 jobs represent nearly 10% of its corporate workforce.

For employees, uncertainty is high. Many corporate workers have been watching internal forums for weeks as managers hinted at upcoming layoffs.

While AI is transforming how companies operate and may reduce the need for some jobs in the long term, Jassy’s focus on bureaucracy suggests Amazon’s leadership believes the company simply got too complicated for its own good.

The cuts continued after the January announcement. In August 2026 Amazon filed fresh California WARN notices covering 148 more Bay Area roles across San Francisco and Sunnyvale, effective October 20, 2026.

How Affected Employees Can Navigate the Job Market

Amazon layoffs, like those at most major tech companies, tend to hit corporate roles harder than technical roles. Affected employees should act quickly: update LinkedIn within 48 hours of receiving notice, because the "Open to Work" feature increases recruiter contact by approximately 40%. Amazon alumni have a strong technical brand that opens doors at AWS-adjacent companies, enterprise software vendors, and funded startups scaling cloud infrastructure.

The Amazon severance package typically includes at least 60 days of continued pay, health insurance extension, and access to career support services. Carefully review any non-compete clauses in your offer letter, especially if you are considering joining a direct Amazon competitor in AWS, logistics, or advertising technology.

What Comes After Amazon: Job Search Strategy

Former Amazon employees benefit from the company's alumni network, which is one of the most active in tech. LinkedIn searches for "Amazon alumni" in your target industry surface warm connection opportunities faster than cold outreach. Prioritize referrals over direct applications, since referrals at most tech companies convert to interviews at 4x the rate of cold applications.

Many candidates use AI-powered interview assistant to prepare for questions exactly like these.

For software engineers, the transition from Amazon to other employers is well-understood and generally fast (2 to 6 weeks for qualified candidates). For program managers, operations, and support roles, expect a longer search of 2 to 4 months in 2026. Use the time between roles to build skills in AI tools relevant to your field, since employers increasingly screen for AI familiarity during hiring.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Amazon still hiring in 2026?

Amazon continues to hire selectively in 2026, with most growth in AWS, AI, and robotics divisions. The company has reduced corporate headcount while expanding technical roles. Check Amazon Jobs directly and filter by department and location to find active listings.

How do I get an interview at Amazon?

The most reliable paths are applying through Amazon's careers site, getting a referral from a current employee, or connecting with an Amazon recruiter on LinkedIn. Referrals increase your chance of getting a phone screen by roughly 4x compared to cold applications. Tailor your resume to match Amazon's Leadership Principles language.

What happens after Amazon lays off employees?

Laid-off Amazon employees receive severance based on tenure (minimum 60 days pay), continuation of benefits, and access to career resources. They also keep their Amazon stock on a pro-rated vesting schedule. Many Amazon alumni find roles quickly given their strong technical brand in the market. Amazon has continued cutting at a smaller scale since, including 121 roles across 12 Washington facilities in August 2026, so the alumni pool keeps growing.

How should I prepare for an Amazon software engineering interview?

Amazon SDE interviews cover data structures and algorithms (LeetCode medium difficulty), system design for senior roles, and behavioral questions based on Leadership Principles. Prepare at least 2 STAR stories per Leadership Principle. Use Interview Copilot to practice live, real-time responses under time pressure.