Amazon is reportedly set to lay off around 30,000 office workers as part of a major cost-cutting initiative, even as the tech and e-commerce giant ramps up its investments in artificial intelligence (AI), according to multiple US media outlets.

The move, expected to begin on Tuesday, will impact nearly 10 percent of Amazon’s approximately 350,000 office employees. However, it is not expected to affect the company’s distribution and warehouse workforce, which makes up the majority of its 1.5 million global employees, the reports said.

Seattle-based Amazon did not respond to AFP’s request for comment on the reported layoffs, which were first revealed by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other outlets citing anonymous sources.

Shares of Amazon closed slightly higher on Monday amid growing speculation about the impending job cuts.

Why is Amazon laying off thousands of employees in 2025?

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly emphasised the transformative potential of AI in reshaping business operations—from customer engagement to workplace efficiency.

The company is scheduled to report its latest quarterly results on Thursday and faces mounting investor pressure to demonstrate the returns on its massive AI-related spending.

Amazon is also expected to face questions about a recent AWS outage that disrupted several major internet services worldwide.

Last week, an outage in Amazon’s cloud infrastructure knocked out platforms including Prime Video, Disney+, Perplexity AI, Fortnite, Airbnb, Snapchat, and Duolingo. Messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp also experienced disruptions in Europe, while some banks, including Lloyd’s, reported outages linked to AWS.

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

AWS remains the dominant player in the global cloud computing market, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Its infrastructure supports a vast range of online services used by businesses, governments, and consumers worldwide.