Amazon is reportedly going to reduce up to 15% of roles in its HR division, known internally as the People Experience and Technology (PXT) team.
The PXT team has over 10,000 employees globally covering recruiting, employee experience, HR technology, and related functions. The company has not disclosed exact numbers, timings, or which regions will be most impacted.
Why Amazon Is Doing This
Several reasons are being cited in reports:
- AI and automation: Amazon is accelerating investment in artificial intelligence, cloud operations and infrastructure. As these systems mature, some HR tasks may be automated or consolidated.
- Cost control: A broader cost-cutting strategy. The company wants to reduce employee cost in certain corporate functions while investing heavily in capital expenditures—especially AI/data centres.
- Efficiency in internal operations: Cutting redundancies, overlapping roles within HR tech & support functions. Reports mention overlapping or less-efficient roles being evaluated.
Potential Impacts
- On employees in HR: Those in recruiting, HR operations, internal tech support, employee experience units will likely see the most impact. Some positions may be eliminated; others might be shifted or merged.
- Organizational changes: Leadership layers, reporting structures in the PXT division might be restructured to reduce managerial overhead
- Recruitment slow-downs: With fewer people in HR, hiring might slow, or processes might be streamlined or partially automated.
- Morale and culture: Cuts in HR can affect morale broadly, as HR is often a bridge between corporate policy and employees. Employees might perceive uncertainty or strain.
- AI adoption curve: As Amazon leans more into AI, this move may accelerate adoption of AI tools in HR tasks like recruitment, onboarding, employee queries, etc.
What Amazon’s Been Up To
- It is spending over US$100 billion in capital expenditure this year, much of it aimed at AI infrastructure and cloud/data centres.
- This is part of a broader trend for Amazon: earlier rounds of layoffs in 2022-23 affected ~27,000 corporate roles
- Simultaneously, Amazon is also planning to hire seasonal / frontline workers—e.g. for its holiday fulfillment operations—while shrinking corporate overhead. Business Standard
Risks & Considerations
- Regulatory / legal risks: Globally, employment laws vary. Amazon will need to navigate layoffs carefully across regions.
- Talent loss: Important employees in HR tech or people management could leave, taking domain knowledge with them.
- Employee morale / public perception: Layoffs, especially in HR, tend to draw attention and may affect how employees view stability, internal support and career prospects.
- Quality trade-offs: With fewer staff, some HR processes could be delayed or diminished in quality—onboarding, support, etc., unless mitigated.
Outlook & What to Watch
- When Amazon will officially confirm the layoffs, and the specific numbers in different geographies.
- How much of the HR function will be automated vs. eliminated vs. reorganized.
- Whether similar cuts will spread to other corporate or non-core teams.
- How customers and employees respond—both in media, internally in Amazon, and in markets.
- The impact on Amazon’s ability to manage its large workforce with fewer HR personnel.
