Amazon layoffs: Tech giant mistakenly confirms sacking of cloud unit employees in email

Amazon Layoffs: Tech giant Amazon on Tuesday mistakenly sent a notice to some employees, confirming a wave of upcoming layoffs at the company.

Employees in the company's cloud division received an internal email acknowledging “organizational changes” at Amazon, according to a report by CNBC.

The notice appeared to have been sent prematurely to Amazon Web Services (AWS) employees, a day before the next round of Amazon layoffs, part of the e-commerce giant's plan to cut 30,000 jobs, was scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning, as per Reuters.

“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions at AWS, wrote in the email, seen by CNBC.

“These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success," it added.

The email also mentions a post from Amazon’s HR boss Beth Galetti, saying that the company had already notified “impacted colleagues in our organization,” in the US, Canada and Costa Rica that they had lost their jobs.

According to Reuters, AWS employees who received the email said in their Slack messages that the meeting called for Wednesday was almost immediately cancelled.

“These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success,” the email further read, as per Reuters.

Amazon layoffs this week

Reuters earlier reported that Amazon intended to lay off thousands of corporate employees starting this week.

However, the Andy Jassy-led company has not yet informed impacted workers, nor has it confirmed the news.

Jobs in the company's units covering AWS, retail, Prime Video and human resources were slated to be affected, Reuters reported, quoting people familiar with the matter.

The full scope of Amazon's layoffs this week remained unclear.

Amazon laid off about 14,000 people in October as part of a broader plan to reduce corporate staff by around 30,000, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

On Tuesday, Amazon cut jobs in its Fresh grocery and Go market divisions as it plans to close existing brick-and-mortar stores and convert some of them to Whole Foods stores. It did not disclose the number of affected employees.

The size of the cuts to be announced on Wednesday remained unclear. The full 30,000 jobs flagged in October would represent a small portion of Amazon’s 1.58 million employees, but nearly 10% of the company's corporate workforce.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the layoffs were meant to reduce management layers and bureaucracy inside the company.