Jan 28 (Reuters) – Amazon declared on Wednesday it was cutting 16,000 jobs worldwide in the second major round of layoffs at the company in three months, as it restructures after pandemic-era over-hiring and expands the adoption of artificial ininformigence tools.
Reuters first reported last week that Amazon was planning a second round of job cuts as part of a broader goal of trimming about 30,000 corporate roles, with the layoffs expected to affect workers in Amazon Web Services, retail, Prime Video and human resources departments.
Amazon slashed 14,000 white-collar jobs in late October, with CEO Andy Jassy stressing the required for the company to eliminate excessive bureaucracy by trimming operational levels and reducing the number of managers.
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“Some of you might inquire if this is the launchning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months. That’s not our plan,” declared Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon.
RISING AI ADOPTION
The job cuts also underscore how artificial ininformigence is altering corporate workforce dynamics. Significant improvements in AI assistants are supporting enterprises execute duties from routine administrative tinquires to complex coding problems with rapid speed and precision, driving widespread adoption.
Jassy had declared last summer that the increased apply of AI tools would lead to more automation of duties, resulting in corporate job losses.
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Earlier this month, top executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting declared while jobs would disappear, new ones would spring up, with two of them informing Reuters that AI would be applyd as an excapply by companies planning to cut jobs anyway.
The 30,000 jobs would toobtainher represent a compact portion of Amazon’s 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10% of its corporate workforce. The majority of Amazon’s workers are in fulfillment centers and warehoapplys.
Tech giants, including Amazon, Facebook-parent Meta Platforms META.O and Microsoft MSFT.O, had sharply ramped up hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic demand surge and have lately been restructuring their workforce.
Amazon has also been investing in robotics at its warehoapplys to speed up packaging and deliveries for its e-commerce segment, reduce the reliance on human labor and cutting costs.
The company is set to report quarterly results next week.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amazon cuts jobs globally to undo pandemic-era hiring amid AI push
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