AMAZON HAS SAID it is cutting 16,000 jobs worldwide as part of a restructuring announced in October, when the e-commerce giant flagged plans to cut its workforce by 14,000 posts.

The tech giant employs around 6,000 people in Ireland between corporate offices, operations sites, data centres and a customer service centre.

The company opened its first Irish office in 2004 and now has six sites in Ireland, including the Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Baldonnel Business Park in Dublin, Ireland

Amazon senior vice president Beth Galetti said today that the job cuts are aimed at “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy”.

Last October it was reported that roughly 30,000 job cuts were planned, impacting nearly 10 percent of the 350,000 office jobs at Amazon, without affecting the distribution and warehouse workers that make up the bulk of its 1.5 million employees.

At the time the company refused to comment on the reports, which said they came amid increased investments in artificial intelligence.

In October the Department of Enterprise said that it had received a collective redundancy notification from Amazon.

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.

Amazon did not give any breakdown of the latest job cuts, saying only that “every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate”.

The company will release its full-year 2025 results on 6 February, when it will hold a conference call that will be broadcast live.

With reporting from AFP