Amazon is laying off some employees in its communications and sustainability units, an executive overseeing the divisions announced internally on Wednesday.
In a note to staffers viewed by CNBC, Drew Herdener, who oversees public relations and corporate responsibility, wrote that the company is eliminating some jobs in those groups as part of a wider review into the “current org design” of the divisions.
“As we examined our current org design and decided on the shifts outlined above, we identified some roles that were too narrowly scoped or that introduced unnecessary layers, where we couldn’t solve the challenge by flattening the structure or shifting workloads,” Herdener wrote. “To address this and do the right thing for the business, we’re eliminating a small number of roles in Communications and Sustainability. This is a difficult decision to make and one that my leadership team and I do not take lightly.”
Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser confirmed the layoffs and said in a statement that the job cuts would “help us move faster, increase ownership, strengthen our culture, and bring teams closer to customers.” Bloomberg earlier reported the job cuts.
Herdener went on to say that the company may rehire some employees for roles at lower levels, “and in others, we will redistribute the headcount to other areas within the org.” Amazon will provide financial support, continued benefits and job-placement assistance to laid-off staffers, Herdener said.
Amazon cut more than 27,000 jobs across the company in 2022 and 2023 as part of CEO Andy Jassy’s efforts to rein in costs. It had smaller rounds of job cuts in 2024 that are stretching into this year. The company has also continued to wind down some of its more experimental or unprofitable initiatives, including a “Try Before You Buy” clothing service and a speedy brick-and-mortar delivery program.
Herdener said Amazon is streamlining its communications and sustainability divisions after the organization “grew quite a bit” in recent years. Herdener’s role expanded in recent years and he now also oversees corporate responsibility, which includes the sustainability group.
Amazon went on a hiring spree during the Covid-19 pandemic, adding staffers to its corporate workforce and in its hundreds of warehouses across the U.S. Its global workforce swelled to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021, up from 798,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company had more than 1.5 employees as of the end of the third quarter.
Amazon is also making some changes to its “hub strategy,” which dictates the offices teams primarily use, as part of the reorganization, Herdener said. The goal is to have “more team members working in the same physical location as the majority of their teammates and/or manager,” he wrote. Herdener said he is leaving it up to his direct reports to decide which locations make sense for their teams.
Earlier this month, Amazon began requiring corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office. In a push to get employees back to the office, some staffers were told to relocate to hubs in different states. Several Amazon employees told CNBC following the announcement of the “return to hub” policy that they had chosen to leave the company instead of relocating.
As part of the five-day office mandate, Amazon also set a goal to flatten its corporate structure by having fewer managers in each organization.
Amazon has made sustainability a bigger directive within the company. It set ambitious climate goals in 2019, including a commitment to being carbon neutral by 2040. It also aims to power its business operations with renewable energy sources by 2025, and has amassed a portfolio of more than 500 wind and solar projects globally.