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Photo = Yonhap news |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the company’s workforce may shrink over the next few years due to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
In an internal email sent to employees on June 17, Jassy noted that more productive AI tools and agents are expected to significantly change how work is done, potentially reducing the number of people required for certain tasks. He added that while some roles may require fewer staff, others could see an increase in headcount due to evolving job demands.
Jassy emphasized that employees will need to learn and experiment with AI tools to discover how to accomplish more with fewer resources. “It’s difficult to predict the exact outcomes, but it’s likely that corporate roles will be impacted by AI adoption across the company,” he said.
Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the U.S. after Walmart, expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, growing from 798,000 employees in late 2019 to over 1.6 million by the end of 2021. However, since 2022, the company has laid off over 27,000 employees as part of cost-cutting efforts. Recent job cuts include approximately 200 employees in its physical stores division in January and around 100 in the devices and services unit in May.
As of March 2025, Amazon employs approximately 1.56 million people globally, including around 350,000 in corporate roles.
AlphaBIZ Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
