New York (NCS) — Amazon chief govt Andy Jassy’s rationalization for why the corporate is cutting 14,000 employees? Not cash. Not even AI, however “culture.”
The layoff announcement this week was “not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI driven, not right now. It’s culture,” Jassy stated in response to an analyst query on the corporate’s earnings name Thursday. Amazon’s quarterly gross sales grew 13% year-on-year to $180 billion.
Jassy defined that as Amazon added headcount, areas and features of enterprise lately, “you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers … sometimes without realizing it, you can weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work.”
Amazon’s headcount peaked at greater than 1.6 million in 2021; it ended final yr with round 1.5 million workers, in keeping with SEC filings.
“It can lead to slowing you down as a leadership team,” he stated. “We are committed to operating like the world’s largest startup, and … that means removing layers.”
Although Amazon stated this week that the layoffs have been extra about staying “nimble” in anticipation of future AI efficiencies, the layoffs have nonetheless spurred fears about expertise changing human staff. Amazon (AMZN) shares climbed 13% after-hours following the earnings report.
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