Starting today, Amazon is laying off 30.000 corporate employees. It's the largest cut since 2022, and this time the reason is crystal clear: artificial intelligence costs less than humans. Andy jassy, the company's CEO, had clearly stated in June: "AI will allow us to achieve significant efficiency gains." Translation: fewer salaries to pay, more algorithms at work. The layoffs affect 9% of the corporate workforce (350.000 office employees).
The most affected divisions are human resources, cloud computing, and operations. Managers were instructed yesterday to communicate the news to their teams. The emails went out today. Reuters reports that the cuts could last for weeks. This is the bare news, but we'll have to think about it later. Shall we do it together?
Seattle's Ruthless Math
Thirty thousand people laid off aren't a small detail. They're entire departments disappearing, skills accumulated over years of work becoming irrelevant overnight. According to sources close to the Wall Street JournalSeveral letters regarding layoffs have already been sent out. The picture is clear: Amazon is no longer trying to balance efficiency and employment. It has chosen efficiency..
The affected divisions tell a specific story. human resources, historically the beating heart of every company, are being scaled down because Chatbots and automated systems can handle staffing, onboarding, and benefits management. The cloud computing, the very division that generates most of Amazon's profits, is being streamlined because AI can optimize servers and analyze data without human supervision. The Department operating who coordinates warehouses and logistics loses pieces because Robots and predictive algorithms do the same job with fewer errors.
The most disturbing fact? Amazon is not facing a crisisThe company continues to generate record profits. In 2024, it invested over $100 billion in cloud infrastructure and AI.
Layoffs are not a reaction to economic hardship, but a deliberate strategy to increase profit margins by replacing salaries with algorithms.
Amazon layoffs, a technological "decimation"
This isn't the first round of layoffs for Amazon. Since 2022, year in which Jeff Bezos he passed the reins to Jassy, the company has already eliminated 27.000 jobsBut those cuts were different: a consequence of the pandemic, the deflated online shopping bubble, and a global economic crisis. Today, the situation has completely reversed. Amazon fires while it grows, while it makes money, while it expands.
The real turning point came in June, when Jassy sent an email to all corporate employees. The message was clear: "Those who become AI experts will help us reinvent the company. Those who don't risk being left behind." It wasn't a warning. It was an early epitaph. As reported by Only 24 HOURS, that email explicitly admitted that “AI will reduce the corporate workforce.”
Amazon has over 1.000 AI systems already operational or in testing. They create personalized advertising, optimize logistics, assist customers via chat and voice, write code, summarize data, generate predictive analytics, and support internal teams with repetitive tasks.
Practically, they do exactly what 30.000 employees were doing until yesterday.
The plan that no one wants to see
The 30.000 corporate layoffs are just the appetizer. According to internal documents revealed by the New York Times, Amazon is reportedly planning to replace up to 600.000 US workers by 2033A precise business plan, with objectives, deadlines, and budget.
The stated objective is automate three-quarters of global operations, cutting over $12 billion in costs by 2027. The math is ruthless: each item stored costs 30 cents less with robots than with humans. Multiplied by billions of packages per year, the savings become astronomical. And if for delivery They even put cyborg glasses on couriers…
A concrete example? The warehouse of Shreveport, Louisiana. A thousand robots handle most of the packing and shipping. Result: 25% fewer workers compared to a traditional warehouse. By 2026, that same facility will require only half the employees.
Amazon plans to replicate this model in 40 facilities by the end of 2027.
Layoffs: Italy also in the crosshairs of automation
The phenomenon is not unique to the United States. In ItalyAmazon employs approximately 17.000 people. It's unclear how many of them will be laid off in the coming years; the manager of Amazon Italy said some time ago that robots they would have created new jobs, but global data leave little room for illusions. According to the 2025 report by the Randstad Foundation AI & Humanities, about 10,5 million Italian workers are highly exposed to the risk of automation.
The most vulnerable professions? Skilled workers and office workers. These are precisely the categories that form the backbone of the Italian labor market. World Economic Forum the offer (somewhat optimistically) that by 2030, 170 million new jobs will be created, but 92 million will disappear. A net positive balance of 78 million, certainly. But where will those 92 million people who lose their jobs go in the meantime? Will they all be able to find new jobs and enter the other figure, that of employed people?
When efficiency becomes the problem
The question isn't whether automation is inevitable. It is. Technology doesn't wait for permission; it simply advances. The problem is speed. Historically, about 50% of jobs change radically every 75 years. But artificial intelligence is accelerating this pace exponentially. Sam altman, CEO of OpenAI, he admitted that
“AI could replace millions of jobs faster than the workforce can adapt.”
And it's not just manual labor, on the contrary. Programmers, developers, and analysts are also starting to feel the pressure. AI writes code (still poorly, but that's enough for some), fixes bugs, and optimizes databases. A sector that seemed untouchable is discovering it isn't at all.
Amazon, for its part, makes no apologies. The company continues to maintain that robots "work alongside humans, not in place of them." But the numbers tell a different story. Thirty thousand layoffs today, 600.000 by 2033.
Collaboration seems to come at a rather high cost for those who aren't familiar with circuits.
The silence of the other giants
Amazon is not alone. Meta laid off 600 employees of the artificial intelligence division in October 2025. Google has cut hundreds of positions in its hardware and assistant divisions. Microsoft It has eliminated 15.000 jobs since the beginning of the year. The list goes on.
The pattern is always the same: record profits, billions in AI investments, mass layoffs. Tech companies are reshaping the global labor market, and they're doing it without much ado. The mantra is always the same: do more with less. Fewer people, lower costs, higher margins.
And while CEOs talk about “process optimization” and “strategic reorganization,” thousands of workers are discovering that their experience, their skills, their years of service are worth less than an algorithm that never sleeps.
Layoffs, the question no one asks
Ultimately, the real question isn't whether automation will replace workers. It already is. The question is: what happens to people in the meantime? We've been saying it for a long time, and even recently: white-collar workers I'm under the gun of artificial intelligence Like, and more than, blue-collar workers. How do you retrain a fifty-year-old employee who spent twenty years doing a job now performed by a chatbot?
Where are the 30.000 laid off Amazon employees going?
The answers are vague. They talk about "professional retraining," "new digital skills," and "opportunities in the AI sector." But the reality is more prosaic: most of these people will end up accepting lower-paid, more precarious, and less skilled jobs. Because the labor market won't absorb 30.000 human resources or cloud computing experts in a matter of weeks.
Amazon will continue hiring 250.000 seasonal warehouse workers during the holiday season. These are temporary, low-wage jobs with no benefits. The contrast is stark: you lay off skilled corporate employees and hire temporary workers to handle the seasonal peak. Until even that becomes too expensive compared to robots.
Thirty thousand emails sent out since this morning. Thirty thousand people who have discovered that efficiency comes at a cost. And that this time, they're paying that cost.
