Amazon's newest round of cuts will be a 15% reduction to its human resources department, People eXperience and Technology, according to HR Grapevine.
What's happening?
Per HR Grapevine, multiple sources told Fortune about the planned cuts, although details are not available about the exact number of positions being axed or when the trigger will be pulled.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel offered no comment.
The PXT unit, under senior vice president Beth Galetti, comprises more than 10,000 employees globally, so a 15% reduction means around 1,500 layoffs. That's in addition to the 27,000 positions that were cut in its corporate offices between 2022 and 2023.
It appears that CEO Andy Jassy hopes to make up for the difference in labor by employing artificial intelligence solutions. The company is set to invest up to $100 billion in AI and cloud infrastructure in the year ahead.
According to HR Grapevine, Jassy has told employees that those who embrace AI "will be well-positioned to have high impact" and that its adoption is going to lead to a smaller workforce overall.
"We expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company," Jassy wrote in a company-wide memo, per HR Grapevine.
Why is this round of layoffs important?
Amazon has come under fire in the past for overworking employees. While it is a massive corporation and one of the most profitable companies in the world, it also operates on a lean staff in some areas and has made many more cuts to personnel in recent years.
Any time a successful company lays off employees, it's hard on the individuals involved. Those who lose their jobs are obviously out of a source of income, while those who remain have to work harder to cover the workload of those who have left.
Beyond that, however, this is an especially worrisome move because the company is explicitly pivoting to have AI do the job that was previously done by human beings. If unsuccessful, it will cause chaos for both employees and customers. If successful, we can likely look forward to many more layoffs in the future — and not just at Amazon.
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Absolutely 💯 Meanwhile, the AI systems themselves take a terrible toll on the environment. They may be cheaper to use, but they more than make up for that in pollution, overuse of water resources, and overuse of electricity, which drives up utility prices.
Amazon might get good press for changing its delivery vans to electric, but any benefit to the environment from those moves has to be weighed against the harm being done by sinking billions of dollars into AI data centers.
What's being done about job losses at Amazon?
While Amazon is letting go of many of its office workers, it is opening up seasonal positions in its warehouses, illustrating that the business is still going strong. However, that is small comfort to the many people who have been let go.
Greater regulation of AI electricity and water usage might curb this shift toward replacing people with computers.
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