Amazon is cutting about 16,000 jobs across the company, SVP of People Experience and Technology Beth Galetti wrote in an email to employees Wednesday.

The cuts were widely expected — and although Galetti’s email did not mention Amazon Web Services, the cuts came as no surprise to AWS staff, some of whom were prematurely invited to a meeting to discuss them, according to news reports.

SVP for AWS Applied AI Solutions Colleen Aubrey emailed a meeting invitation to staff late Tuesday referring to Galetti’s email, which staff had not then received, Bloomberg reported. “Changes like this are hard on everyone,” it reported the email from Aubrey as saying. “The decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.”

Affected staff will not be laid off immediately, Galetti wrote: Those in the US will have 90 days to look for a new role internally; timing will vary in other countries. Those whose jobs are cut, and who haven’t found a new one at the end of that time, will receive severance pay and outplacement support, she said.

At the same time, the company will continue hiring in what Galetti described as “strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future.”

Galetti last announced thousands of job cuts at Amazon in October 2025. Back then, she said the reason for them was AI.

Amazon is not planning to make such cuts on a regular basis, she said, but did not rule out the possibility, suggesting that such decisions could be made at a lower level in future. “Every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate,” she wrote. “That’s never been more important than it is today in a world that’s changing faster than ever.”