Amazon bungles Wednesday layoff plan with misfired internal email
Greg Bensinger
Updated January 28, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN) on Tuesday appeared to have prematurely alerted Amazon Web Services cloud-computing employees to layoffs planned for Wednesday morning by sending a commiseration email and team-wide meeting invitation hours early.
Reuters reported on Friday that Amazon intended to lay off thousands of corporate employees starting this week. But the company has not yet informed impacted employees, nor has it confirmed the layoff plan.
The email sent on Tuesday signed by Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions at AWS, wrongly said that impacted employees in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed they lost their jobs.
In Slack messages viewed by Reuters, AWS employees who received the email said the Wednesday meeting was almost immediately canceled. Amazon referred in the email to the layoffs as "Project Dawn."
"Changes like this are hard on everyone," Aubrey wrote in the email, reviewed by Reuters. "These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success."
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jobs in the company's units covering AWS, retail, Prime Video and human resources were slated to be affected, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, though the full scope of this week's cuts was unclear.
Amazon laid off about 14,000 people in October as part of a broader plan to reduce corporate staff by around 30,000, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
On Tuesday, Amazon cut jobs in its Fresh grocery and Go market divisions as it plans to close existing brick-and-mortar stores and convert some of them to Whole Foods stores. It did not disclose the number of affected employees.
The size of the cuts to be announced on Wednesday remained unclear. The full 30,000 jobs flagged in October would represent a small portion of Amazon’s 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10% of the firm’s corporate workforce.
Amazon, in an October blog post, tied those job cuts to the increased use of artificial intelligence. That post from the head of human resources, Beth Galetti, indicated more job cuts were likely in the future.
The errant email Tuesday referred to a blog post by Galetti, which has not yet appeared on Amazon's website.
(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Jamie Freed and Cynthia Osterman)
Amazon to lay off 16,000 employees after grocery shakeup, bringing total cuts to 30,000 since October
Brooke DiPalma · Senior Reporter
Updated January 28, 2026
Amazon (AMZN) is making major cuts to its corporate workforce for the second time in less than six months as it continues to adjust its staffing plans following a surge of hiring during the pandemic.
The company on Wednesday announced plans to eliminate 16,000 roles, with executive Beth Galetti writing in a blog post that the cuts are intended to reduce layers, increase ownership, and reduce bureaucracy.
A report from Reuters said the company appeared to tip off employees to the coming cuts in an internal email inadvertently sent Tuesday to workers in its AWS division.
Last October, Amazon laid off 14,000 workers after the company became "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."
In her note Wednesday, Galetti said the company does not plan large, rolling cuts to its workforce every few months.
In late 2024, CEO Andy Jassy said he wanted the company to "operate like the world's largest startup" as part of an announcement cutting management layers and setting new expectations about corporate staff coming to the office five days per week.
As of Sept. 30, Amazon had roughly 350,000 corporate employees.
This week's staff cuts also come after the company announced plans to close its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores to focus on delivery services and expanding Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired in 2017.
"While we've seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven't yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion," the company said. According to sources close to the matter, Amazon plans to evaluate each store Fresh and Go location to see which can be converted into Whole Foods stores.
Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt told clients in a note that Amazon's plans with grocery were an "important step forward in Amazon’s broader strategy and should help the company capture incremental share in perishable categories where they have struggled historically."
The company is expected to report its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report on Feb. 5 after market close.
Brooke DiPalma · Senior Reporter
Updated January 28, 2026
Amazon (AMZN) is making major cuts to its corporate workforce for the second time in less than six months as it continues to adjust its staffing plans following a surge of hiring during the pandemic.
The company on Wednesday announced plans to eliminate 16,000 roles, with executive Beth Galetti writing in a blog post that the cuts are intended to reduce layers, increase ownership, and reduce bureaucracy.
A report from Reuters said the company appeared to tip off employees to the coming cuts in an internal email inadvertently sent Tuesday to workers in its AWS division.
Last October, Amazon laid off 14,000 workers after the company became "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."
In her note Wednesday, Galetti said the company does not plan large, rolling cuts to its workforce every few months.
In late 2024, CEO Andy Jassy said he wanted the company to "operate like the world's largest startup" as part of an announcement cutting management layers and setting new expectations about corporate staff coming to the office five days per week.
As of Sept. 30, Amazon had roughly 350,000 corporate employees.
This week's staff cuts also come after the company announced plans to close its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores to focus on delivery services and expanding Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired in 2017.
"While we've seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven't yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion," the company said. According to sources close to the matter, Amazon plans to evaluate each store Fresh and Go location to see which can be converted into Whole Foods stores.
Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt told clients in a note that Amazon's plans with grocery were an "important step forward in Amazon’s broader strategy and should help the company capture incremental share in perishable categories where they have struggled historically."
The company is expected to report its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report on Feb. 5 after market close.
Aileen Bedolla and her dog, Princess, arrive at Amazon Fresh and find it closed in Fullerton, CA on Tuesday, January 27, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images) · MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images via Getty Images
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Brooke DiPalma is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.
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Brooke DiPalma is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.
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