Amazon lays off over 14,000 employees in first round of cuts, ex-employees react

Amazon announced plans to lay off 14,000 employees and counting in a public blog post on Tuesday, October 28.

As if there weren’t enough people out of work, Amazon has reportedly laid off tens of thousands of employees from its corporate operations, including one woman currently on vacation. 

On Tuesday, October 28, the tech giant began laying off nearly 14,000 employees with plans to lay off almost 30,000 ultimately as it makes way for the adoption of AI, Reuters reported.  

Reportedly, many of the employees discovered they were officially “former” employees via either a shocking email, mass text blasts, or witnessing whole teams being dismissed within minutes. According to some reports, many have found out their employment status as the public learned of the layoffs. 

Amazon employees impacted have been reacting to the news and sharing their stories online, including one user on TikTok who goes by Jules The Creator, who claims to have been laid off while vacationing in Mauritius. In a series of videos, she explained that she had just learned the company had laid her off after she had worked there for four years. 

“It’s still so surreal, like I’m literally on vacation right now, but I guess I’m gonna be on vacation for a lot longer than I anticipated,” she said to the camera. “So wish me luck and TBD on what I do next.”

In a follow-up video where she closed by asking for any advice on what to do after a layoff —besides go on vacation—she added, “I’m kind of like, at this point, thinking it’s divine intervention. I’m not freaking out. I’m also still very much in shock.” 

Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience, explained in a post on the company’s public blog on Tuesday that the company is making “organizational changes across Amazon that will impact some of our teammates.”

She added that while communications were coming directly from various leaders, the company “wanted to share the broader context about what’s happening and why.”

In keeping with CEO Andy Jassy’s vision of running Amazon, a 30-plus-year-old company, “like the world’s largest startup,” this requires “the right structure.”   

“What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This 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,” Galetti continued. “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”