When Amazon announced it was cutting 16,000 corporate jobs, many assumed it was the latest phase of CEO Andy Jassy's push to reduce the corporate workforce as AI brings more efficiency gains. But like other companies that have tied major workforce changes to AI — including Pinterest and Dow — it can be hard for economists, or individual employees, to know if AI is the real reason or the message a company wants to tell Wall Street. Amazon said in a statement that AI wasn't the reason "behind the vast majority" of the layoffs.
Amazon is cutting about 16,000 jobs in the latest round of tech industry layoffs. Beth Galetti, a senior vice president, announced this Wednesday in a blog post. The reductions follow October's layoffs of 14,000 workers. U.S.-based staff will have 90 days to find a new role internally. Those unsuccessful or uninterested will receive severance pay, outplacement services, and health insurance. Galetti said Amazon will continue hiring in strategic areas. These cuts are Amazon's biggest since 2023, when 27,000 jobs were cut. Amazon's workforce doubled during the pandemic but has since been reduced.
A problem at Amazon's cloud computing service disrupted internet use around the world. The outage on Monday took down a broad range of online services, including social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming and financial platforms. About three hours after the outage began, Amazon Web Services said it was starting to recover from the problem, although problems lingered for some users. AWS provides behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to some of the world's biggest organizations. Its customers include government departments, universities and businesses. Amazon pinned the outage on issues related to its domain name system.
Amazon is now rolling out a service where its Prime members can order their blueberries and milk at the same time as their batteries and other basic items. The online juggernaut said Wednesday that customers in more than 1,000 cities and towns now have access to fresh groceries with its free Same-Day Delivery on orders over $25 for Prime members, with plans to reach over 2,300 locations by year-end. The company said that if an order doesn't meet the minimum, members can still choose Same-Day Delivery for a $2.99 fee. For customers without a Prime membership, the service is available with a $12.99 fee, regardless of order size.
Amazon's annual Prime Day sales are here again. The e-commerce giant is making the now-misnamed Prime Day a four-day event for the first time. Its promised blitz of summer deals for Prime members started at 3:01 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday and runs until early Friday. The company launched the event in 2015 and expanded it to two days in 2019. Amazon executives declined to comment on the potential impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs on Prime Day deals. Some retail analysts expect U.S. consumers to make purchases this week out of fear that high taxes on foreign imports will make items they want more expensive later.
It's one of the most under-publicized policies of some of the biggest U.S. retailers: sometimes they give customers full refunds and let them keep unwanted items too. Returnless refunds are a tool that more retailers are using to keep online shoppers happy and to reduce shipping fees, processing time and other ballooning from mountains of returned products. Companies such as Amazon, Walmart and Target have decided some items are not worth the cost or hassle of getting back. Think a $20 T-shirt that might cost $30 in shipping and handling to recover. While the practice is not exactly a trade secret, the way it works is shrouded in mystery.
