Amazon accidentally tips off thousands of Amazon Web Services (AWS) employees about upcoming layoffs – hours before the company planned to officially announce the cuts.
This article has been updated to reflect that Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs on Wednesday.
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Amazon accidentally warned AWS employees about layoffs before officially announcing them.
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Thousands of corporate roles across AWS, retail, and Prime Video are expected to be cut.
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The mistake comes as Big Tech layoffs accelerate and AI reshapes workforce planning.
An announcement before the announcement
The internal email, sent Tuesday and signed by AWS applied AI senior vice president Colleen Aubrey, told employees that affected workers in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica had already been notified. They hadn’t.
"Changes like this are hard on everyone," Aubrey wrote in the email, which was seen by Reuters.
"These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success."
Within minutes, a planned next-day meeting among the leftover staff was immediately canceled as Slack channels lit up. Meanwhile, “Project Dawn” – the management's codename for the layoffs – was no longer a secret.
Last week, sources told Reuters that thousands of corporate jobs across AWS, retail, Prime Video, and human resources were on the chopping block.
16,000 Amazon employees given the ax
The premature email reportedly framed the layoffs in familiar corporate language, calling the changes “difficult” but necessary to position AWS “for future success,” even though they hadn't actually happened yet.
Since then, employees had been fervently refreshing their inboxes to find out their fate. They got the official word on Wednesday morning.
Without acknowledging the email snafu, Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, posted a copy of the message Amazon shared with its employees after the layoffs were announced.
Switching up some of the corporate jargon and referring to the layoffs as “additional organizational changes,” Galetti first acknowledged the reductions as “difficult news.”
“We've been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” Galetti said, echoing previous statements made by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
Jassy already eliminated roughly 14,000 white-collar roles in October as part of a broader plan to reduce corporate headcount by about 30,000.
Galetti went on to explain that the second round of cuts stemmed from Amazon teams that had not “finalized their organizational changes” back in October, stating that the company is “working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted.”
Amazon said it is offering most US-based employees 90 days to find a new role within the company and will provide transition support to those who do not stay, including severance pay, outplacement services, health insurance benefits (as applicable), and more.
Interestingly, the letter also states that while the shifts are underway, Amazon will “continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions critical to our future.”
"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. But just as we always have, every team will make adjustments as appropriate," Galleti said.
Chaos for Amazon employees
Meanwhile, the backlash on social media has been far and wide with reports of Amazon employees finding out about the layoffs in the most demoralizing ways.
“The Amazon layoffs are pretty ugly,” says Amanda Goodall, CEO of The Job Chick.
This isn’t performance-based. Profitable teams were hit. Top performers were hit. Entire management layers are gone while systems kept running like nothing changed. WTF?" the workforce researcher and advisor said in a lengthy post on X.
What’s more, Goodall says frustrated workers spent the day learning they were being let go from the company in dribs and drabs.
Goodall says she’s heard horror stories from parents on approved leave, new hires who have barely unpacked, and managers who’ve learned they’ve been cut by checking their own calendars, which they found erased.
“People are finding out they’re gone in pieces,” Goodall explains, citing employees' access as half-working, leaders disappearing mid-day, inboxes still visible but locked, and even some being paged after their roles are dead.
The chaos also appears to be impacting the Amazon “survivors” who Goodall reports are already looking for new positions elsewhere.
“This is what efficiency looks like in practice: maximum silence, minimum explanation, zero accountability,” she adds.
AI, bureaucracy, and mixed messaging
Wednesday's cuts represent nearly 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce, though only a small fraction of its total 1.58 million employees worldwide, according to Reuters.
Amazon has offered shifting explanations for its workforce reductions.
In October, the company linked earlier layoffs to the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, calling the technology “the most transformative shift since the internet.”
But Jassy later walked that talk back, telling analysts the cuts were more about internal bureaucracy than automation, at one point claiming some employees were simply 'not a cultural fit.'
“You end up with too many layers,” Jassy said, pointing to management bloat rather than financial pressure or AI displacement.
Still, the timing is notable. Amazon spent December aggressively promoting new AI models at its annual AWS conference, even as it prepared another round of corporate belt-tightening.
Layoffs spread across big tech
Amazon’s misfired email also comes amid a growing wave of tech sector job cuts.
Blaming AI integration, also on Tuesday, social media platform Pinterest confirmed layoffs, announcing it was cutting roughly 15% of its workforce.
Not to be outdone, telecom giant Verizon carried out its second round of “aggressive layoffs” in November, stemming from continued restructuring efforts tied to automation and cost reductions since its new CEO took over.
Stressed Verizon employees took to social media in the weeks leading up to the layoffs after rumors of 13,000 cuts spread across Reddit, similar to the dread Amazon employees experienced this past week.
Layoffs and store closures
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Overall, the telecommunications sector announced 38,035 layoffs in 2025, more than a 250% increase from the previous year, according to International Business Times.
Meanwhile, Amazon had already started trimming other divisions before Wednesday's announcement.
On Tuesday, the company confirmed job cuts at its Fresh grocery and Go store units as it moves to close physical locations and convert some sites into Whole Foods stores.
Furthermore, Amazon employees laid off in October were also given 90 days on payroll to apply internally or transition out – a grace period that expires Monday.
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