Athira Sethu
Kochi, 15 May 2025
Amazon has announced that it is cutting around 100 jobs from its devices and services unit. This division of the company encompasses hit products such as the Alexa voice assistant, Echo smart speakers, Ring security gadgets, and even the Zoox autonomous vehicles.
An Amazon spokesperson indicated the move was done to enable the company to work more effectively and remain concentrated on its product strategy. The company detailed that it is never easy to lay people off and indicated it will care for those affected in this process.
Amazon would not indicate which specific teams or departments will be affected. But it did mention that hiring is still occurring in some areas of the devices and services unit.
Since the beginning of 2022, Amazon has been attempting to decrease its expenses. CEO Andy Jassy has been at the forefront of reducing expenses across the firm. To date, Amazon has dismissed around 27,000 employees in the last two years. Although the largest layoffs occurred in 2022 and 2023, there are still some layoffs occurring in 2024-25, although on a lesser scale.
Amazon also attempted to make the company easier to run last year. The aim was to cut back on the number of managers and have teams be more specialized. Jassy wanted to have more employees contributing directly to projects, rather than having a lot of layers of managers. The idea was to boost the ratio of employees to managers by at least 15% by as early as 2025.
Amazon is not the sole major technology company cutting jobs. Microsoft also just announced it would release approximately 6,000 workers. Similar to Amazon, Microsoft is attempting to eliminate redundant levels of administration and be more effective.
In short, Amazon’s new move indicates the way big technology firms are continuing to adapt following rapid expansion over previous years. As they streamline the way that they operate and reduce expenses, further changes within personnel and composition could follow.
