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Though, I think the title is a bit of a misnomer here. In part the axing of jobs was done to reduce costs; now AI also may relate here or be even a main driver, but I think the title oversimplifies it a bit.
- October 2025: Amazon cuts 14k jobs
- December 2025: Amazon announces additional 35b USD investment to India (total 75b USB by 2030); promises to create ~1m jobs there
- December 2025: Random H1B lottery is dismantled, giving preference to higher company salary spending e.g. the more salary H1B applicant would receive, the better the chances
- January 2026: Amazon cuts 16k additional jobs (30k jobs cut in total)
You really don't have to be a detective to figure out that this has nothing to do with AI.
Interesting perspective of an L7 who was laid off at Amazon https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016500347053773198
Well, that's one way to go for that next job.
Every large company is updating its standard layoffs announcement press release from "economic headwinds" to "AI".
AI is the perfect scapegoat. Insurance providers are also doing it. AI is also used in the legal space too.
>Amazon axes 16,000 American jobs as it ... relocates to a larger campus in India https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/amazon-to-invest-additiona...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/11/17/top-u...
Alternatively they may be using AI in HR as part of the decision making, and it's made the determination that these folk can go "because of AI" based on past firings and performance since then.
Interesting perspective of an L7 who was laid off at Amazon https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016500347053773198
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excuse is only half the story. I don't fully understand why they are doing it though. Companies hire people to make money, not as an act of social conformance. Global economy doesn't look that terrible. Nor is the AI story that believable. Is it just the CEO Zeitgeist? All the guys at Aspen talking about what fraction they cut, just as 5 years ago they bragged how bloated their org chart is? TBH the "ZIRP overhiring"…
> Global economy doesn't look that terrible. It doesn't? I was born in the 90s (so admittedly 2008 was before I started working), but the economy is looking the worst it's been in my lifetime to me.
Every large company is updating its standard layoffs announcement press release from "economic headwinds" to "AI".
Excuse is only half the story. I don't fully understand why they are doing it though. Companies hire people to make money, not as an act of social conformance. Global economy doesn't look that terrible. Nor is the AI story that believable. Is it just the CEO Zeitgeist? All the guys at Aspen talking about what fraction they cut, just as 5 years ago they bragged how bloated their org chart is? TBH the "ZIRP overhiring"…
This is quite likely a big part of it. There's a lot of herd behavior in the financial markets. A few companies fire a bunch of people, stock price goes up, others follow suit.
Also, in many cases, this isn't something that anyone pays attention to on an ongoing basis, because very few execs have the mandate to do it at a large scale, and their attention is scarce. So in practice, it tends to be done at intervals, and doing it when other companies are also doing it gives cover.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not american, but it seems to me there are enough american job seekers in CS to justify not needing H1B. I'm not sure anyway what is the relationship between the potential difficulty of hiring new folks, and firing current folks in USA to offshore roles, are relates.
There's not a surplus of American developers that can pass interview loops at top tech employers.