Amazon Layoffs: Retail and Stores Division Cuts Under 1,000 Roles Across US, UK, and India
Amazon has eliminated fewer than 1,000 corporate roles, primarily impacting its Stores and retail operations across the US, UK, and India, the company confirmed. Coming amid its Prime Big Deal Days and Great Indian Festival sales, the cuts reflect an ongoing corporate reorganisation as Amazon plans a record USD 220 billion capital expenditure in AI infrastructure.
Amazon employees reported a new round of job cuts across several parts of the company on Tuesday, October 6. A group of employees wrote in an internal Slack channel that they had received emails telling them their roles had been eliminated, according to messages viewed by Business Insider. The channel, which had nearly 37,000 members, quickly filled with questions about severance, access to internal job postings, and whether further notifications were still coming.
The messages suggest cuts across several business units, including customer service, marketplace support, and engineering roles in Amazon’s retail business, as well as in India and the UK. Fewer than 1,000 employees were affected in total, according to a person familiar with the matter, the report stated. The workforce reduction highlights how organisational realignments continue to shape the e-commerce giant's retail operations even during major shopping events. Amazon Re-Hiring Laid Off Employees for AI and Cloud Roles Like Meta.
Amazon Layoffs: Retail Teams Impacted Across Global Offices
Amazon has conducted another round of layoffs globally. This time, the company said, it cut fewer than 1,000 jobs, largely in its retail teams across multiple countries, including India, the US, and the UK. These job cuts are part of Amazon’s broader layoffs that are expected to impact about 30,000 jobs globally.
As per reports from Reuters and Business Insider, employees of Amazon’s Stores business, which oversees the e-commerce website, were impacted by the layoffs. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the company eliminated “a small number” of roles on Tuesday, primarily in its Stores business. Disney Layoffs: Dana Walden Defends Cutting Over 300 Jobs As 'Extremely Painful'.
"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 Stores business 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 spokesperson also echoed to Reuters that the adjustments were intended to better deliver on key operational priorities, though the company did not specify the exact head count.
Timing Coincides With Major Festive Sales
The layoffs come right at the start of Amazon’s sale season on its e-commerce platform. In India, the Amazon Great Indian Festival sale began on October 7 for Prime members, and now is available for all users. Globally, the company also kicked off the Prime Big Deal Days sale on October 6.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a Fox News interview aired on Wednesday that the continuing job cuts were necessary because the company had overhired during the pandemic. "People were staying home and they were ordering, and it was an incredible, stressful period for us, by the way,” he said.
Internal Communication and Corporate Workforce Anxiety
On Tuesday, reports said, the employees had received emails notifying them that their roles had been eliminated, something that we have had companies like Oracle and Meta do in the past as well. Many employees reportedly discussed severance, access to internal job postings, notice periods, and other details on an internal Amazon Slack channel that is said to have about 37,000 members.
These messages suggested that the job cuts were made across multiple teams, including customer service, selling partner services, marketplace support and engineering roles in Amazon's retail business. Some employees were reportedly asking whether the reductions would extend to Mexico and other parts of Europe.
The layoffs followed months of anxiety among Amazon's corporate workforce over the possibility of another widespread round of cuts, according to reports. It is believed that some leaders within the company had scaled back planning for the next several quarters partly because they expected teams or priorities to change.
Pivot Toward Massive Artificial Intelligence Spending
The new cuts show that Amazon's cost overhaul is still reshaping its corporate workforce even as the company embarks on its biggest spending binge yet. After eliminating roughly 30,000 jobs late last year and early this year to cut costs and flatten its organisation, Amazon is now preparing to spend a record USD 220 billion on data centers, chips, and other infrastructure for AI.
The company has also reportedly contacted former employees, including some laid off in earlier rounds, about open roles in AWS and its AI businesses. Amazon is not alone in combining job cuts with a larger AI push. Meta eliminated roughly 8,000 roles in May while shifting thousands of workers into AI initiatives, and Microsoft cut more than 5,000 jobs across July and September. Oracle, too, has announced multiple layoff rounds in recent months.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 08, 2026 09:02 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
