Update (1:14 PM): Officials say that the layoffs will not impact any workers in the El Paso area.<\/p>\n
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN<\/p>\n
New York (CNN) \u2014 Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees, the company\u2019s second round of large-scale job<\/a> reductions in three months as it fights to improve its standing in the battle for AI supremacy.<\/p>\n In a blog post<\/a> Wednesday, the company said it needed to reduce red tape to increase its decision-making speed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,\u201d said Beth Galetti, Amazon\u2019s senior vice president of people.<\/p>\n Amazon<\/a> in late October announced it was cutting 14,000 corporate employees, following a directive from CEO Andy Jassy\u2019s vision of operating like the world\u2019s biggest startup. He wants the company to remain nimble so it can adapt and change quickly as AI upends the technology sector<\/a>.<\/p>\n Amazon is America\u2019s second-largest private employer, behind Walmart. It has over 350,000 corporate employees, according to a 2024 survey<\/a> filed to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The culmination of both the recent rounds of cuts represent about 9% of the company\u2019s overall office staff.<\/p>\n Galetti said in the blog post that the waves of layoffs won\u2019t become a \u201cnew rhythm,\u201d even though Jassy predicted Amazon would continue to reduce its employment rolls because of AI<\/a>. Instead, Amazon is evaluating the \u201cownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate,\u201d Galetti said.<\/p>\n She added, however, that Amazon will hire strategically to ramp up in parts of the business that are critical to the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n Amazon is in stiff competition with Microsoft, Google, Meta, OpenAI and a host of other technology companies that are battling to ramp up computing power and large language models that they believe will power the economy of the future. That\u2019s an expensive endeavor, but Jassy has said these layoffs are about efficiency rather than cost savings. <\/p>\n Layoffs will begin Wednesday across the company. Most employees will be given 90 days to look for new roles internally, while people who aren\u2019t rehired at Amazon will be given severance pay and additional benefits, the company said.<\/p>\n The layoffs were reportedly<\/a> announced to staff Tuesday night in an internal email. That memo was apparently sent inadvertently, because it referred to the blog post that wasn\u2019t published until Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n