Amazon appears to have accidentally alerted employees about planned layoffs before officially announcing them, according to a report by Reuters. On Tuesday,
some employees at Amazon Web Services (AWS) received an email and a meeting invitation that suggested layoffs were already underway. However, the company had not yet formally informed affected employees, nor had it publicly confirmed the job cuts at that point, the report said. Reuters had earlier reported on Friday that Amazon planned to lay off thousands of corporate employees starting this week. But the email sent on Tuesday created confusion as it wrongly stated that employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been told they were losing their jobs. The email was signed by Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions at AWS. In the message, Aubrey referred to the layoffs internally as “Project Dawn.” Also Read: Managers At Amazon Can Now See Who Comes In—And How Long They Actually Stay In Office; Check Details “Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Aubrey wrote in the email reviewed by the news outlet. “These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.” Soon after the email was sent, the meeting scheduled for Wednesday was quickly cancelled, according to Slack messages seen by Reuters. Employees who received the message said the sudden cancellation added to the confusion and anxiety. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. People familiar with the matter said that the layoffs were expected to affect jobs across AWS, retail, Prime Video, and human resources, though the exact number of cuts remains unclear. Amazon has already been cutting jobs over the past few months. In October, the company laid off about 14,000 employees as part of a broader plan to reduce its corporate workforce by around 30,000 people. Earlier this week, Amazon also cut jobs in its Fresh grocery and Go market divisions, as it plans to shut down some physical stores and convert others into Whole Foods outlets. In an October blog post, Amazon linked these job cuts to the increased use of artificial intelligence. The post, written by Beth Galetti, Amazon’s head of human resources, warned that more job cuts could follow. The mistaken email sent on Tuesday referred to a blog post by Galetti that has not yet been published on Amazon’s website.
