Amazon confirms 16,000 job cuts after accidental email

2026-01-28 14:21:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

US tech giant Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs - hours after telling staff of a new round of global job cuts in an email that was apparently sent in error. The email, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday and refers to a number of employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica who have been laid off as part of an effort to "strengthen the company". The message was apparently shared in error, as it was quickly deleted.

Early Wednesday, Amazon announced job cuts as part of a plan to “remove red tape” at the firm. Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said Wednesday that it was not planning to make “broad cuts every few months,” referring to Amazon’s announcement of 14,000 corporate job cuts in October.

"While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams have not completed that work yet," she said. Amazon employs about 1.5 million people globally, with about 350,000 in corporate roles. Amazon has not said where the latest job losses will fall or which locations will be affected.

The Dawn Project

On Tuesday, a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was included in a calendar invite sent by an executive assistant to a number of Amazon employees. The invitation’s title was “Send email for Project Dawn,” an apparent reference to Amazon’s codename for job cuts. While the email made it clear that job cuts were happening at Amazon, employees had not yet been officially informed.

“This is a continuation of the work we have been doing for over a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy so we can act faster for customers. Such changes are difficult for everyone. These decisions are difficult and are being made carefully as we position our organization and AWS for future success,” the email said.

The job cuts had been expected by Amazon employees for weeks, according to a former employee. The broad understanding among workers had been that bosses intended to cut a total of about 30,000 roles, added the former employee, who left the company as part of the cuts in October. The firm was expected to reach that number of job cuts with another large round of job cuts this month, followed by further cuts through the end of May.

While laid-off workers were invited to reapply for open positions at Amazon, the number of such roles was limited. People who did not move on to another role received severance pay based on their length of employment with the company.