Amazon confirms job cuts impacting hundreds of employees in retail unit

Amazon laid off hundreds of employees this week in its Stores business, which runs the companyβs main e-commerce site β the latest in a series of smaller job cuts in recent months.
Customer service, selling partner support and retail engineering teams were among those hit, according to internal Slack posts viewed by Business Insider and Reuters. Both outlets reported that fewer than 1,000 employees were impacted, citing people familiar with the matter.
The cuts came during Prime Big Deal Days, which ran Tuesday and Wednesday. The fall shopping event is one of the key annual milestones for Amazonβs retail team.
βWeβre always looking at our team structures to ensure weβre best set up to move fast as we innovate for customers,β an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement Wednesday night. βWeβve adjusted parts of our Stores business because we believe this structure will better enable us to deliver on our priorities.β
Amazon didnβt provide further details on the changes. The statement continued, βAs part of these changes, weβve made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles, and weβre committed to supporting affected employees through their transition.β
The internal Slack posts suggested that affected employees were in the U.S., India and the UK, according to Business Insider. Amazon hasnβt yet filed a notice with Washingtonβs Employment Security Department, which is required when a company lays off 50 or more workers in the state.
Amazonβs online store sales rose 15% to $70.4 billion in the second quarter, and revenue from third-party seller services grew 16% to $46.8 billion. Together, they accounted for 58% of the companyβs $200.6 billion in total revenue for the quarter.
The cuts follow Amazonβs elimination of about 30,000 corporate jobs in October 2025 and January 2026, the largest workforce reduction in the companyβs history. Amazon has made smaller cuts since then, including in its robotics and artificial general intelligence groups.
Jeff Bezos, Amazonβs founder and executive chairman, addressed the earlier cuts in a Fox News interview that aired Wednesday. Bezos has predicted that AI will make the economy so productive that many people wonβt need to work as much, making it hard for companies to hire.
Asked by Bret Baier how Amazonβs 30,000 job cuts fit with that view, he said the company was βin a very special positionβ after hiring so many people during the pandemic. βThe whole team worked extremely hard and did so much, but we really grew our headcount,β he said.