New Delhi: A major round of job cuts may be round the corner at Amazon.
The tech giant is reportedly planning to lay off around 16,000 employees globally, starting on January 27.
The fresh round of reduction in workforce is expected to have a wider geographic impact, with India-based teams likely to be hit harder than before, according to multiple reports and employee chatter on platforms like Blind and Reddit.
The proposed move is reportedly part of a wider restructuring drive that could eliminate nearly 30,000 corporate roles by mid-2026.
The layoffs are expected to be across departments, with employees in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Prime Video said to be among those at higher risk.
Reuters had reported last year that Amazon was planning to cut around 30,000 corporate jobs by the end of 2025 as part of a wider restructuring exercise.
Amazon confirmed its restructuring drive in October 2025, when the company eliminated around 14,000 white-collar roles in the first phase.
The Seattle-headquartered American tech giant now seems to be set to roll out the second phase of job cuts, by adding 16,000 roles to that tally and thereby pushing total job losses to the figure of 30,000.
In 2022 and 2023, Amazon had laid off 27,000 employees.
Amazon has a total employee strength of around 1.57 million globally. The focus of impending cuts is on white-collar corporate workforce, which comprises around 350,000 employees.
Indian corporate teams, based in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, are being seen as vulnerable this time.
When will layoffs start?
Internal communications and anonymous posts by Amazon employees on Reddit, Blind and LinkedIn suggest that the layoff process could begin this week itself.
Many of those posts have claimed that managers and senior leaders have already hinted at impending cuts. Others said that employees currently on performance improvement plans (PIPs) may be informed ahead of the wider workforce.
