Amazon is cutting 14,000 jobs, claim news reports. However, there is no official confirmation from the company nor the data on layoffs.fy, which tracks tech layoffs across the globe, suggests any new job cuts at Amazon. According to the layoffs.fy website, some 23,054 tech employees have been laid off across 87 tech companies in 2025. As per internal messages reportedly seen by Business Insider, Amazon cut jobs in its Fashion and Fitness group in January 2025. An Amazon spokesperson had then told the publication that role eliminations affect roughly 200 employees across the country. “We’re always looking at our team structures to ensure we’re best set up to move fast as we innovate for customers,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve adjusted parts of our North America Stores team because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities. As part of these changes, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles, and we’re committed to supporting affected employees through their transition,” the Amazon spokesperson reportedly told BI.
What Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on cutting middle managers
This has also again brought to fore Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on flattening the company’s hierarchy. In an email to employees in September 2024, Jassy said that he wants to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers. CEO Jassy wrote in the memo to employees, “So, we’re asking each team organization to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025. Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today. If we do this work well, it will increase our teammates’ ability to move fast, clarify and invigorate their sense of ownership, drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers (and the business), decrease bureaucracy, and strengthen our organizations’ ability to make customers’ lives better and easier every day. We will do this thoughtfully, and our PxT team will work closely with our leaders to evolve our organizations to accomplish these goals over the next few months. ” The memo was titled ‘Strengthening our culture and teams’.
Reiterating the same, in a chat with Bloomberg in February 2025, Jassy he spoke about cutting middle managers. “You add a lot of people and you end up with a lot of middle managers. And those middle managers, all well-intended, want to put their fingerprint on everything,” he said.
“So you end up with these people being in the pre-meeting, for the pre-meeting, for the pre-meeting, for the decision meeting, and not always making recommendations and owning things the way we want that type of ownership.”
Amazon’s strict take it or leave it policy on Working from Office
Another big part of the company culture, for Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, includes a strict five-day RTO mandate. Amazon announced the return to the 5-day work week in September. Employees had until January 2, 2025 to adhere to the company’s new RTO policy.
Jassy and other top management stuck to a 5-day work week mandate despite backlash from employees. At an all-hands meeting, Jadssy said, “This was not a cost play for us… This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture.”
Amazon’s cloud boss Matt Garman too defended the decision at Town Hall meeting in October 2024, saying employees who do not agree with the company’s new policy can leave.
