Amazon clears the air on 14,000 managerial job cuts; says reports are false

Amazon Layoffs: E-commerce major Amazon Inc. has rejected the reports of 14,000 managers being laid-off as a part of its cost-cutting plan.

Multiple media media outlets had reported mass lay-offs after Amazon's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andy Jassy announced his plans to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15 per cent by the end of March 2025.

“This claim is false and based on inaccurate assumptions. In September 2024, we shared with employees that we set a goal to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15% across our organizations because it was the right time to bring us closer to customers and reinforce our culture of ownership,” company's spokesperson Brad Glasser said.

“There are a number of ways to achieve that increase without eliminating roles. We’ve now reached that goal, which we believe will allow our teams to move even faster as they innovate for customers,” he added.

A message from CEO Andy Jassy to the employees dated 16 September 2024 noted that he feels that the company can have a better organizational structure to drive the level of ownership and speed it desires. "We want more of our teammates feeling like they can move fast without unnecessary processes, meetings, mechanisms, and layers that create overhead and waste valuable time," Andy said.

The CEO's message

"We’re asking each s-team (senior-team) organization to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025. Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today. If we do this work well, it will increase our teammates’ ability to move fast, clarify and invigorate their sense of ownership, drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers (and the business), decrease bureaucracy, and strengthen our organizations’ ability to make customers’ lives better and easier every day," he added.

Speaking on the issue of improving efficiency, Andy batted for returning to work from office. "To address the second issue of being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business, we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID. When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant," the CEO's message read, adding that “having the right culture at Amazon is something I don’t take for granted.”