Amazon Mistakenly Confirms Fresh Round Of Layoffs In Erroneous Emails To Workers

US technology giant, Amazon, has inadvertently confirmed a new round of global job cuts after an internal email detailing the layoffs was mistakenly sent to employees.

The draft email, written by Colleen Aubrey, a Senior Vice President at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was attached to a calendar invitation sent late Tuesday by an executive assistant to several Amazon workers.

The invitation, titled “Send project Dawn email” believed to be a code name for the job cuts, contained details indicating that employees in the United States, Canada and Costa Rica had already been laid off as part of efforts to “strengthen the company.”

Although the invitation was quickly cancelled, the message had already circulated among staff. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the incident.

The email made it clear that layoffs were underway even though employees had not yet been formally notified.
“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.

It added: “Changes like this are hard on everyone. These decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.”

Amazon had announced 14,000 job cuts in late October, and the leaked message appeared to confirm a second wave of redundancies long anticipated by staff.

A former Amazon employee, who requested anonymity, said workers had expected further layoffs for weeks.

“The broad understanding among employees had been that bosses intended to cut a total of around 30,000 roles,” the former employee said, adding that they were part of the October layoffs.

According to the source, Amazon was expected to reach that figure with another major round of layoffs this month, followed by additional job cuts running until the end of May.

While affected employees were allowed to reapply for open roles within the company, the number of available positions was limited. Those unable to secure new roles received severance packages based on their length of service.

Since 2022, major technology firms, including Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft, have laid off tens of thousands of workers annually.

Industry data from Layoffs.fyi estimated that about 700,000 jobs have been cut across the global tech sector over the past four years.

So far this year, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has cut several hundred jobs, while Pinterest recently laid off about 700 employees.

Since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as Chief Executive Officer four years ago, his successor, Andy Jassy, has overseen multiple rounds of layoffs in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Jassy has also moved to enforce a stricter workplace culture. Amazon now requires employees to work from the office five days a week, making it one of the few major tech firms with a full-time in-office policy.

The company has intensified cost-cutting measures, including monitoring corporate mobile phone usage by AWS employees, reportedly to curb a longstanding $50 monthly reimbursement, according to Business Insider.

In an email sent to employees ahead of the Thanksgiving Holiday, Jassy said he was grateful for the “challenges at opportunities at work” as “the world is changing at a very rapid rate.”

He described the period as “a time to rethink everything we’ve ever done.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Amazon announced plans to shut down its remaining 70 Amazon-branded grocery outlets, Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, while expanding its Whole Foods Market business.