SEATTLE — Amazon accidentally revealed plans to eliminate 16,000 corporate jobs on Tuesday evening after an internal email intended for Wednesday was sent hours ahead of schedule, confirming what employees had feared: the tech giant’s second massive layoff wave in three months, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The premature communication, sent by Colleen Aubrey, Senior Vice President of Applied AI Solutions at Amazon Web Services (AWS), referenced the restructuring as “Project Dawn” and mistakenly indicated that affected workers in the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica had already been notified of their termination. A team-wide meeting invitation scheduled for 5 a.m. Pacific time Wednesday was canceled almost immediately after the error was discovered, employees said in internal Slack messages reviewed by multiple outlets.
Staff Scramble to Decode Accidental Announcement
The gaffe ignited widespread confusion across Amazon’s internal communication channels. Employees questioned whether they had been targeted or received the message by mistake.
“Am I impacted or sent by mistake to all?” one employee wrote in a Slack channel with more than 36,000 members, according to messages obtained by Business Insider. Another interpreted the email as confirmation of expected cuts: “Well, if you needed solid proof that tomorrow is legit, the project dawn email is it”.
“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Aubrey wrote in the email reviewed by Reuters. “These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.”
Amazon formally confirmed the layoffs Wednesday morning through a statement from Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, who acknowledged the cuts but tried to reassure remaining staff that the company wasn’t planning “broad reductions every few months”.
Part of 30,000-Job Reduction Since October
The latest cuts bring Amazon’s total corporate workforce reduction to approximately 30,000 positions since October 2025, when the company eliminated roughly 14,000 roles. The combined layoffs represent nearly 10% of Amazon’s estimated 350,000 corporate employees and mark the largest workforce reduction in the company’s three-decade history.
Jobs across AWS, retail operations, Prime Video, and the human resources division—internally known as People Experience and Technology—are affected by the reductions, though the precise scope varies by team. The cuts represent a small fraction of Amazon’s total workforce of approximately 1.58 million employees, most of whom work in warehouses and fulfillment centers and are not impacted.
Most U.S.-based employees whose roles are eliminated will receive 90 days to search for new positions internally, along with severance pay, outplacement services, and continued health insurance benefits for those unable to find alternative roles, Galetti said in her Wednesday statement.
Jassy Blames Culture, Not AI or Finances
CEO Andy Jassy has framed the workforce reductions as an effort to address cultural issues and organizational bloat rather than financial pressures or artificial intelligence adoption. “It’s not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI-driven. It’s culture,” Jassy told analysts during the company’s third-quarter earnings call in October.
Jassy elaborated that rapid pandemic-era growth resulted in excessive management layers that weakened employee ownership and slowed decision-making. “You end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers,” he said. “Sometimes without realizing it, you can weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work.”
The CEO emphasized the need to “reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy” to enable faster movement in response to technological transformation. However, Jassy acknowledged in June 2025 that efficiency gains from AI would likely cause Amazon’s corporate headcount to fall in the coming years.
Fresh and Go Store Closures Add to Job Losses
Separately on Tuesday, Amazon announced it would close all 72 of its Amazon Fresh grocery and Amazon Go convenience stores across the United States, cutting additional jobs in those divisions as it pivots toward online delivery and its Whole Foods brand.
A total of 57 Amazon Fresh and 15 Amazon Go stores will shut down in February, including 22 locations in California. “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said in a statement.
Several Fresh and Go locations will be converted into Whole Foods stores, and Amazon plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods locations over the next few years. The company is also expanding a new grocery format called Whole Foods Daily Shop, which offers a smaller selection of grab-and-go meals, coffee, and household items.
Market Watches Amid AI Investment Surge
The layoffs come as Amazon continues aggressive investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. AWS revenue grew 20% year-over-year to $33 billion in the third quarter of 2025, marking the cloud division’s fastest expansion since 2022.
Amazon’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings report is scheduled for February 5, 2026, with analysts expecting double-digit revenue growth but expressing concerns about deteriorating free cash flow and escalating AI infrastructure costs. The company reported $180.2 billion in revenue for the third quarter, a 13% year-over-year increase, though operating income remained flat after accounting for $4.3 billion in special charges including severance costs.
Galetti assured employees that no additional large-scale layoffs are planned, though teams would continue assessing and “making necessary adjustments”. “Some of you may wonder if this signals a new pattern — where we implement significant reductions every few months,” Galetti wrote. “That is not our intention.”
