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Amazon confirmed on Wednesday, October 7, that it had eliminated a “small number” of jobs, primarily in its Stores division, which oversees the company’s main e-commerce website. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the cuts affected fewer than 1,000 white-collar employees. The reductions came as Amazon was running Prime Big Deal Days, a major shopping promotion that began Tuesday and ended Wednesday.
The job losses are the latest in a series of smaller workforce reductions following a much larger round of about 30,000 corporate cuts that began last year and continued into January. Amazon said it had reorganized parts of its Stores business to better support its priorities, but did not publicly specify the number of affected workers or give a detailed breakdown of the roles.
Stores division is the main focus
Amazon’s Stores unit is responsible for its principal online retail operation. Posts in internal Slack channels, reviewed by Reuters, indicated that multiple groups within the division were affected, including customer service and selling partner services. The messages also suggested that other parts of Amazon could have been involved, although the full scope was not confirmed.
Employees in the United States, India and the United Kingdom were among those who received layoff notices, according to Reuters. The report did not provide a country-by-country tally, identify specific teams beyond those mentioned in the internal messages, or establish how many workers outside Stores were affected.
In an emailed statement, an Amazon spokesperson said the company had adjusted parts of its Stores business because it believed the new structure would better enable it to deliver on its priorities. The company did not announce a timetable for further changes or provide details about support for employees losing their roles in its statement to Reuters.
Layoffs coincide with major sales event
The cuts took place during Prime Big Deal Days, Amazon’s two-day promotion offering discounts across its online store. Reuters described the event as one of Amazon’s biggest shopping days. The timing links a workforce reduction in the retail business with a high-profile period for the company’s e-commerce operation, but Amazon did not say the promotion prompted or was affected by the job changes.
Amazon has not reported in the available coverage whether the cuts changed its customer-service coverage or selling-partner support during or after the event. Nor did the company quantify any expected cost savings from the changes. Those operational and financial effects therefore remain unclear.
Latest round follows larger reductions
The new cuts follow a broader wave of approximately 30,000 job eliminations that started last year and extended into January. Reuters characterized the latest reductions as part of a series of smaller cuts since that larger round. Amazon has not said how many jobs, if any, it plans to eliminate in additional rounds.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and executive chairman, addressed the earlier reductions in a Fox News interview aired Wednesday. Asked about the 30,000 jobs lost in the previous round, he said the company had hired too many people during the pandemic, when customers staying home drove increased ordering. Bezos said employees had worked hard during that period but that Amazon had substantially expanded its headcount.
The current announcement is narrower than the previous company-wide reductions: the confirmed concentration is in Stores, and the reported total is below 1,000 white-collar roles. However, Amazon has not released a complete count or an official list of the organizations affected, so the precise scale and distribution remain unconfirmed.
What remains undisclosed
Amazon’s public explanation focuses on reorganizing parts of its Stores business to align its structure with company priorities. The company has not provided further detail about what those priorities entail in this restructuring, whether roles will be transferred or replaced, or whether employees can apply for other positions internally.
The available reporting also does not establish whether additional notices are expected. Reuters said some affected workers shared internal Slack posts about the announcement, but the company did not announce a subsequent date for decisions or a further update. For now, the confirmed picture is a limited, primarily retail-focused round of corporate job cuts against the backdrop of the larger reductions announced since last year.
