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Amazon has begun notifying corporate employees affected by its latest round of layoffs, after announcing plans to eliminate about 14,000 roles across the company as part of a restructuring effort.
According to internal messages viewed by Business Insider, the notification emails were sent early Tuesday morning, with some workers receiving text alerts before they reached the office. The alerts urged them to check their personal or work email and, in some cases, directed them to call a help desk if they hadn’t received “an email message about your role”.
A message from Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti, shared on the company’s internal Slack, told affected employees they would receive full pay and benefits for the next 90 days as part of a non-working transition period, followed by a severance package, according to a report by Business Insider. But it is unclear if the email is standard across Amazon.
Read the email Amazon sent to laid-off employees
In her email to impacted staff, Galetti wrote: “I have some important, but difficult, news to share with you. After a thorough review of our organization, our priorities, and what we need to focus on going forward, we've made the hard business decision to eliminate some roles across Amazon. Unfortunately, your role is being eliminated and your employment will end after a non-working period."
“We didn't make these decisions lightly, and we're committed to supporting you throughout this transition, which will include a non-working period with full pay and benefits (as applicable), an offer of a severance package, transitional benefits as applicable by country, and access to several skills trainings as well as external job placement support,” it added.
The email also informed workers that their badge access had already been restricted, meaning those physically present in the office would need to be escorted out by security. The transition process will be handled through Amazon’s A to Z portal, and laid-off staff will retain email and internal communication access during the 90-day period, it said.
Amazon layoffs
Notably, many of the impacted US employees worked as retail managers at Amazon. In a separate blog post, Galetti linked the restructuring to the acceleration of AI adoption across the company.
“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones),” she wrote.
"What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly," Galetti added.
