Amazon slashes 16,000 more corporate jobs as company prioritizes AI over employees

 Amazon is cutting an additional 16,000 corporate jobs after 14,000 layoffs last October.

These layoffs are part of a sustained push to reduce costs and bureaucracy.

The company is reallocating massive investment toward AI and data centers.

The cuts have severe ripple effects on partners and local economies.

This reflects an industry-wide shift funding AI by eliminating human roles.

In a cold corporate calculus that is becoming routine in the tech sector, Amazon is once again handing out pink slips by the thousands. The e-commerce giant announced on Wednesday that it is eliminating approximately 16,000 corporate jobs, a move that follows 14,000 job cuts from last October. This latest wave brings the total number of corporate employees axed since last fall to a staggering 30,000, representing nearly 10% of Amazon's corporate and tech workforce. The company cites a relentless drive to reduce bureaucracy and reallocate resources toward artificial intelligence, underscoring a harsh new reality for white-collar professionals.

This is not an isolated incident but part of a sustained corporate bloodletting. Amazon laid off more than 27,000 employees between 2022 and 2023, with smaller cuts continuing through 2024. CEO Andy Jassy has been openly pursuing a vision of a leaner, more automated corporation, stating last June that AI-driven "efficiency gains" would shrink the corporate headcount. The message is clear: the human workforce is increasingly seen as a cost center, while algorithms and data centers are the future....<<<Read More>>>....

Amazon scraps plans to build 42 new warehouses, shuts down 2 active facilities

 Amazon is abandoning plans to build 42 new warehouses all over the United States and is closing down two active facilities. The company is determined to reduce the size of its sprawling business amid slowing sales growth.

MWPVL International, which tracks Amazon’s massive real estate footprint, noted that the company has either shuttered ongoing plans or abandoned plans in development to open 42 facilities, totaling nearly 25 million square feet of usable space.

Furthermore, MWPVL said Amazon is delaying opening an additional 21 locations, totaling nearly 28 million square feet of usable space. One of the facilities whose opening has been postponed is a massive 700,000-square-foot facility in Nebraska. This facility is already constructed but won’t open until 2024.

Amazon experienced a massive boom in business in 2020 and 2021, when most of the U.S. – and most of the world for that matter – relied on the company’s online marketplace and delivery services for their needs.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky noted back in April that Amazon doubled the size of its operations and workforce between mid-2021 to April 2022.

But now, this surge in demand that accommodated this rapid expansion is slowing down, leaving the company with a massive surplus in space that it needs to get rid of to save on operating costs. It is even looking to sublease at least 10 million square feet of the company’s extra warehouse space....<<<Read More>>>...