WASHINGTON — In a significant move, Amazon revealed it will be laying off up to 14,000 employees from its corporate sector.

The company confirmed these layoffs in a statement released on Tuesday, following widespread media speculation. This development comes as the e-commerce giant shifts focus towards enhancing its artificial intelligence capabilities.

“Today’s announcement is part of our ongoing effort to strengthen the company by streamlining operations, cutting down on bureaucracy, and reallocating resources to prioritize our most important initiatives and meet the evolving needs of our customers,” stated Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology.

Amazon assured that most affected employees will have a three-month period to explore new opportunities within the company, subject to local legal requirements. Furthermore, those unable or unwilling to remain with the company will receive severance packages, outplacement services, health insurance, and additional support.

“Looking toward 2026, as Andy mentioned earlier this year, we plan to continue strategic hiring while also identifying more opportunities to streamline and enhance operational efficiency,” Galetti added.

“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well,” Galetti continued. “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convinced we need to be more leanly organized, with fewer layers and greater ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and the business.”

Reuters previously reported on Monday that Amazon planned to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs starting on Tuesday, nearly double the job cuts announced. 

While the layoffs announced Tuesday represent a small percentage of Amazon’s 1.55 million total employees, it would be about 4% of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate employees. 

Up until 2022, mass layoffs had been rare at the Seattle-based company. Since then, there have been a few rounds of job eliminations impacting thousands. In 2023, the company cut some 27,000 jobs, according to Associated Press reporting. 

Earlier this year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said he believed generative artificial intelligence would reduce the company’s corporate workforce in the next few years as the online giant begins to increase its usage of the technology.

Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Amazon ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans that were increasingly buying stuff online to keep themselves safe from the virus. But demand slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.