Amazon lays off hundreds of workers in fresh round of job cuts following 30,000 layoffs

Amazon is laying off hundreds of employees in another round of job cuts, primarily targeting its retail division, just as the e-commerce giant wrapped up one of its biggest shopping events of the year. The latest layoffs follow a much larger workforce reduction that eliminated 30,000 positions, adding to a growing series of cuts at one of America’s largest employers.

The company confirmed the layoffs on Wednesday, saying it had eliminated a small number of positions in its Stores division, which oversees Amazon’s main e-commerce website and related operations.

“Amazon confirmed on Wednesday it had cut what it said were a small number of jobs, primarily ​in its Stores unit which oversees the main e-commerce website,” Reuters reported.

Fewer than 1,000 white-collar employees were affected, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters. The exact number of positions eliminated has not been disclosed.

The timing is striking. Amazon was in the middle of its annual Prime Big Deal Days promotion, a two-day shopping event held October 6 and 7, offering discounts across electronics, household goods, clothing, and other categories. The event is one of Amazon’s biggest sales promotions ahead of the holiday shopping season.

For employees receiving termination notices, the shopping celebration brought a very different kind of announcement.

Amazon’s latest layoffs extend a wave of workforce reductions

The job cuts affected workers across the United States, India, and the United Kingdom. Internal Slack messages shared with Reuters suggested that several teams within the Stores organization were affected, including customer service and selling partner services, which support merchants selling products through Amazon’s marketplace.

Business Insider first reported the latest reductions. Amazon also confirmed the organizational changes in a statement to Reuters.

“We’ve adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The announcement follows a much larger round of layoffs that began in 2025 and continued into January 2026, affecting roughly 30,000 positions. Since then, Amazon has continued trimming smaller groups of employees across its operations.

Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos addressed the earlier cuts in a Fox News interview aired Wednesday, pointing to the company’s aggressive hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People were staying home, and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us, by the way,” Bezos said when asked about the previous 30,000 job losses.

“The whole team worked extremely hard and did so much, but we really grew our head count.”

Amazon was among the companies that expanded their workforces significantly during the pandemic, when lockdowns and store closures pushed consumers to shop online in record numbers.

With this layoff, Amazon joins a growing list of technology companies that have announced layoffs in recent months. So far in 2026, more than 131,000 tech workers have lost their jobs across 314 companies worldwide, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks layoffs across the technology industry.

That surge created extraordinary demand for delivery services, warehouses, customer support, and the corporate teams that keep Amazon’s operations running. As shopping patterns normalized, the company was left reassessing the size and structure of its workforce.

The latest layoffs suggest that reassessment is far from finished.

What makes this round different is its focus on Amazon’s core retail operation. The Stores division sits at the center of the company’s relationship with millions of customers and third-party sellers. Staffing changes can affect teams responsible for the marketplace’s day-to-day operations.

Amazon has not disclosed how many employees were affected in each country or which individual teams suffered the largest reductions. The company has not publicly said whether it plans more cuts.

The latest announcement raises a question for Amazon employees: how long will the company’s post-pandemic workforce adjustments continue?

For now, Amazon appears to be favoring smaller, targeted reductions rather than announcing another sweeping round of layoffs.

And for a company that spent years hiring to keep pace with surging online demand, the contrast is hard to miss. Amazon continues to attract shoppers to its biggest sales events, yet the business behind those transactions is still finding ways to operate with fewer people.