Amazon announced on Tuesday that it plans to cut nearly 14,000 corporate jobs, just months after CEO Andy Jassy had warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could reduce the company\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n
In a surprising twist during Amazon’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday, Andy Jassy clarified that the layoffs were not about cost-cutting or the adoption of AI. Instead, he said the affected employees<\/a> did not align with Amazon’s culture. This marked the first time he addressed the layoffs since their announcement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,\u201d Andy Jassy said, adding that \u201cit really \u2014 it’s culture.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobs cuts driven by culture?<\/p>\n Andy Jassy’s remarks align with Amazon’s broader mission to reshape its culture this year, as chronicled by Business Insider. He has been working to raise the e-commerce giant’s performance standards, enforce discipline, and eliminate bureaucracy across the company.<\/p>\n During the earnings call, Jassy explained that Amazon’s rapid growth in recent years had led to the creation of \u201ca lot more layers,\u201d which has ultimately slowed down the decision-making process. He stressed the need for the company to \u201coperate leaner and move faster,\u201d especially amid the transformative impact of AI across different industries.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, without realizing it, you can weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work,\u201d Jassy added. \u201cAnd it can lead to slowing you down.\u201d<\/p>\n Conflicting rationale: Culture vs AI transformation<\/p>\n While Jassy focused on cultural and structural factors behind the layoffs, the initial announcement \u2014 made by Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, through a blog post<\/a> on Tuesday \u2014 cited a different reason.<\/p>\n Galetti explained that the rapid evolution of the world due to AI was the reason behind reducing employee headcount, despite the company’s strong performance.<\/p>\n \u201cThis 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),\u201d Galetti wrote in the blog post.<\/p>\n The most recent layoffs at Amazon marked the company’s biggest job cut since it let go of 27,000 employees in late 2022, Business Insider reported.<\/p>\n