Huge Amazon layoff hits 27 California offices

Amazon is slashing its tech workforce in California for the second time in five months, part of a massive spate of layoffs hitting the e-commerce juggernaut’s global workforce.

The Seattle-based tech giant announced a fresh layoff of around 16,000 workers on Jan. 28, adding to the company’s 14,000 layoffs from October. New WARN filings, which are required in the event of a mass layoff, show that more than 1,000 corporate workers are losing their jobs in California.

These new cuts run up and down the state; 27 different California offices are shedding workers, according to the WARNs. Those include two sites in San Francisco, for 103 layoffs total, and 11 across the wider Bay Area, adding 666 more cuts. Offices in San Diego, Santa Monica and Irvine are also losing workers. None of the filings announced an office closure.

Software development engineers are being hit particularly hard by these layoffs; several of the offices’ WARNs list dozens of cuts to those roles. Also included are slews of designers, marketers, data scientists and managers of various types.

Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, sent a since-published memo to employees announcing the layoffs. She gave the 16,000-worker number and said most U.S.-based employees would get 90 days to look for a new role internally. Those leaving will be offered severance pay.

“As I shared in October, we've been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” Galetti wrote. “While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now.”

She added that the company would still hire in “strategic areas” and addressed the massive layoffs landing so close to one another.

“Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm — where we announce broad reductions every few months. That’s not our plan,” Galetti wrote. “But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate. That’s never been more important than it is today in a world that’s changing faster than ever.”

When Amazon cut jobs in October, CEO Andy Jassy faced a question about the head count during an earnings call shortly after. He said the company’s growth had given it “too many layers.”

“The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now, at least,” Jassy said. “It really — it’s culture.”

Laid-off workers have begun flooding LinkedIn with posts about their layoffs, reminiscing on parts of their career journey and time at the huge company. One worker posted a video about the cut to his YouTube account, titled: “I lost my $200,000 job... now what?”

Corporate Amazon employees aren’t the only ones seeing their livelihoods disrupted. As SFGATE reported in January, the company is closing 23 California grocery stores as it ditches its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh models. 

Some of those stores will reopen as Whole Foods Market locations, the company said. But for now, the WARN documents for 22 closures in California list more than 3,800 layoffs. 

Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.