LAST UPDATE | 28 Oct

AMAZON WILL LAY off around 14,000 office workers globally, including staff in Ireland, as the e-commerce and tech giant trims costs amid ramped-up investments in artificial intelligence.

Some 30,000 layoffs had been reported earlier in US media.

In a message to workers, the group said the job losses come as part of efforts to reduce layer and “bureaucracy” within the company while also shifting resources to investment in areas such as AI.

It is understood all main global operations will be impacted.

In a statement this afternoon, the Department of Enterprise said that it had received a collective redundancy notification from Amazon today.

Collective redundancies are situations where, during any period of 30 consecutive days, the number of redundancies in a company of 300 or more staff in Ireland is at least 30.

It means that at least 30 staff cuts in Ireland are planned, with RTÉ reporting that 150 jobs are at risk here. 

The layoffs are expected to affect white-collar workers and not the distribution and warehouse workforce that makes up the majority of the company’s more than 1.5 million employees. About 350,000 of those are in office-based roles.

Amazon has six sites in Ireland, including the Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Baldonnel Business Park in Dublin, Ireland. In September 2024 the company said it employs around 6,500 people in Ireland.

Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said in a message to employees:

“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”

She added: “The world is changing quickly.

“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before.

“We’re convicted that we need to be organised more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”

AI impacts

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy has lauded the potential of AI to streamline workplace operations, from engaging with customers online to making offices more efficient.

“Our conviction that AI will change every customer experience is starting to play out,” Jassy said during Amazon’s last quarterly earnings call.

Amazon will next report earnings on Thursday, and is among the tech titans under pressure to show the merit of huge investments in AI.

“AWS will be under pressure to both show revenue acceleration and operating margin improvement in light of its massive AI investments,” Emarketer principal analyst Sky Canaves said, referring to Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing unit.

Amazon will also likely be pressed for details about a recent AWS outage.

Popular internet services ranging from streaming platforms to messaging services to banking were offline for hours last week due to an outage in Amazon’s crucial cloud network, illustrating the extent to which internet life depends on the tech titan.

The disruption affected streaming platforms, including Amazon’s Prime Video service and Disney+, as well as Perplexity AI, the Fortnite game, Airbnb, Snapchat and Duolingo.

Mobile telephone services and messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp were affected in Europe, according to Downdetector.

People also reported problems reaching websites, including Amazon’s own e-commerce shop.

Some banks such as Lloyd’s were also impacted, and pointed to Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform as the source.

Amazon said it identified the “trigger of the event” as an issue involving the Domain Name System (DNS), which acts as an internet address book directing data traffic.

AWS leads the cloud computing market, followed closely by Microsoft Azure, with Google Cloud in third place.

Businesses, governments and consumers worldwide rely on their infrastructure for online activities.

If you have been impacted by these job cuts and want to speak to a reporter anonymously about your experience you can contact news@thejournal.ie

With reporting from Press Association