New Delhi: Amazon has started a new wave of layoffs in India as it continues its global restructuring strategy, with approximately 1,000 employees already losing their jobs last week. According to sources at Inc42, the number of job cuts that may be done in India may be up to 2,000 at the completion of the exercise. The redundancies are affecting mid-senior and senior employees of Amazon in its major offices in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
The downsizing will be a larger global restructuring announced in late October and will consist of Amazon cutting approximately 14,000 jobs globally. The hardest hit teams are Prime Video, people experience and technology, human resources, Q&A devices, retail shops and AWS.
Entire teams affected across verticals
The layoff of whole teams is reported to have been experienced in certain divisions. It has impacted employees between the levels L3 and L7 that include entry-level support and top management positions. Last week, the whole Retail Business Services (RBS) department of more than 20 employees in India was sacked within a day. Affected employees are getting two months of salary and two months to secure a new position in Amazon. The employees in higher ranks (L4 and higher) will be offered job placement assistance as well.
Sources had indicated that a second round of restructuring might occur in January 2026. Amazon India, in response, called on a company-wide note by Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology, but did not provide any additional comment.
Driven by AI and organisational reshuffle
In her note, Galetti added that the company is reorganising to cut bureaucracy, eliminate layers, and move resources to its largest bets, specifically artificial intelligence. Amazon is already putting substantial resources into AI technologies, such as spending $8 billion in Anthropic and building its own large language models.
Amazon is not the first or the last in the list of the global tech giants, such as Microsoft, that have announced large-scale layoffs as the world continues to rapidly automate and adopt AI. The firm has approximately 1.2 lakh employees in India who serve its international business as well as the local e-commerce. Although Amazon India has not made consistent profits, it has been able to close its losses in FY25.