Business

Amazon cuts corporate retail jobs right after Prime shopping event

Amazon is cutting fewer than 1,000 corporate jobs, mainly in its Stores division, following its October Prime Big Deal Days sale. ©Image Credit: Unsplash / Yender Gonzalez

Amazon has barely wrapped up its October Prime Big Deal Days sale, and some employees are already facing an unwelcome post-shopping surprise in the form of layoffs. The e-commerce giant is cutting fewer than 1,000 corporate employees, mainly in its Stores division, which oversees its main shopping website, according to Reuters. The cuts reportedly span multiple teams, including customer service and services for third-party sellers, with employees in the U.S., India and the U.K. among those affected.

Prime Big Deal Days ran Tuesday and Wednesday, giving shoppers two days to hunt for discounts before news of the latest job cuts emerged.

Another round of Amazon layoffs

These cuts are relatively small compared to Amazon's recent workforce reductions, but they add to a longer stretch of corporate downsizing. The company has already eliminated roughly 30,000 jobs in layoffs that began last year and continued into January. Internal Slack messages reviewed by Reuters reportedly point to cuts across multiple divisions, suggesting the changes are not limited to one team. Business Insider was the first to report the latest layoffs.

According to Amazon, the changes are about how its business is organized. “We’re always looking at our team structures to ensure we’re best set up to move fast as we innovate for customers,” a company spokesperson told FOX Business.

The spokesperson added that the company had adjusted parts of its Stores business to better support its priorities and said it would help affected employees through the transition.

How AI fits into all this

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has previously weighed in on the company's broader workforce reductions, describing Amazon as being in a “very special position” after significantly expanding its workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has also addressed growing fears that artificial intelligence could make many jobs obsolete, though he disagrees with predictions of a particularly bleak outcome.

That doesn't mean AI is responsible for these latest cuts. The company has not publicly tied this round of layoffs to AI, and its stated explanation centers on restructuring the Stores business. Still, the question remains as major tech companies pour money into AI and rethink how their teams operate, workers are left wondering which roles will survive the next round of organizational changes.

Sources: Fox Business, Yahoo Finance

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