Amazon has announced a further 16,000 jobs will be cut as it continues to embrace AI, with the tech giant accidentally informing employees of the move after an email bungle.

It comes just three months after Amazon announced it was cutting 14,000 workers, with the two job-cutting rounds equating to nearly 10 per cent of its total corporate workforce.

Amazon has recently been ramping up the use of generative AI in its corporate operations, with its CEO Andy Jassy saying it would mean the company needs to employ fewer people.

The tech giant has also been paring back its workforce after it rapidly expanded during the pandemic.

A misfired email

The latest round of job cuts apply to Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the company had planned to notify workers during a meeting on Wednesday this week.

But last Tuesday an email commiserating about the job losses was sent to AWS employees, before they even knew about them, Reuters reported.

“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” the email from AWS senior vice-president of applied AI solutions Colleen Aubrey said.

“These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organisation and AWS for future success.”

The email incorrectly said that all impacted employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been informed of the job cuts.

The email dubbed the latest round of job cuts as “Project Dawn”.

As Reuters reported, the planned Wednesday meeting was swiftly cancelled.

The cuts were later confirmed by the company in a blog post by AWS senior vice-president Beth Galetti, who said they were about “reducing layers, increasing ownership and removing bureaucracy”.

Impacted Amazon staff in the US will be given 90 days to look for a new role internally at the company, and those who are unsuccessful or do not want to stay will get severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits.

“Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months.
That’s not our plan,” Galettia said in the blog post.

“But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.

“That’s never been more important than it is today in a world that’s changing faster than ever.”

Amazon also announced job cuts of 14,000 roles last October, which came just months after Jassy said that the rollout of AI within the company would mean it “will need fewer people” in some roles, and that its corporate workforce will shrink due to “efficiency gains” from the technology.

More AI investments

The job cuts come as Amazon is reportedly in talks to pledge $US50 billion ($71 billion) to generative AI giant OpenAI.

This would be part of a wider funding round rumoured to include Nvidia Corp and Softbank Group Corp.

Amazon in mid-2024 signed a deal with the Australian government to build a bespoke cloud environment that can handle top secret Defence and intelligence data, worth at least $2 billion over 10 years.

The company has also increased its planned investments in Australian data centres to $20 billion from 2025 to 2029.

Amazon is the first major tech firm to announce significant job cuts in 2026.

In January, Meta cut about 10 per cent of its staff working on metaverse-related VR projects, amounting to about 1,500 roles in its Reality Labs unit.

According to layoffs.fyi, there were nearly 125,000 jobs cut across 269 tech companies last year.