US technology giant Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs - hours after it told staff about a new round of global redundancies in an email apparently sent in error.
The email, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday and refers to a swathe of employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica having been laid off as part of an effort to 'strengthen the company.'
The message was apparently shared by mistake, as it was quickly cancelled.
Early on Wednesday, Amazon announced job reductions as part of a plan to 'remove bureaucracy' at the firm.
Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said on Wednesday it was not planning to make 'broad reductions every few months', referencing Amazon's previous announcement of 14,000 job cuts in October.
'While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now,' she noted.
Project Dawn
On Tuesday, a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was included in a calendar invitation sent by an executive assistant to a number of Amazon workers.
The title of the invitation was 'Send project Dawn email,' an apparent reference to Amazon's code name for the job cuts.
Employees had not yet been officially informed of layoffs despite the email making it clear such actions were taking place at Amazon.
'This is a continuation of the work we've been doing for more than a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy, so that we can move faster for customers,' the email stated.
The 16,000 job cuts had been anticipated by Amazon employees for weeks, according to a former employee who asked not to be identified. The broad understanding among employees had been that the intention was to cut a total of around 30,000 roles.
While laid-off workers were invited to reapply for open positions at Amazon, the number of such roles was limited. Those who did not transition to another job received severance pay based on their tenure with the company.
Since 2022, major tech companies like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft have slashed their workforces, laying off tens of thousands of employees.
The firm was expected to reach that job cut number with another major round of layoffs this month followed by further redundancies until the end of May.
Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy has led the company through several rounds of layoffs and is attempting to bring a more stringent work culture, including a mandatory five-day in-office requirement.
Recently, the company announced plans to close its remaining Amazon-branded grocery stores, aiming to shift focus towards its Whole Foods Market business.
