As many as 14,000 corporate jobs are to go at tech giant Amazon, the company announced.
The impact on the 75,000-strong UK workforce is not immediately clear from the announcement, which said impacted people and teams would hear from leadership on Tuesday.
The growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has been blamed for the cuts.
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In a message sent to staff, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, alluded to the criticism that the company is cutting jobs while profiting billions in its latest results.
“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well,” she wrote.
“What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. 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.”
Those who lose their job will be prioritised for openings within Amazon to help “as many people as possible” find new roles, she said.
Hiring will continue, despite the latest cull, in “key strategic areas” while the online retail behemoth finds additional places we can “remove layers, increase ownership, and realise efficiency gains”.
Amazon said it is “shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs”.
Amazon UK and Amazon workers’ union in the UK, GMB, have been contacted for comment.
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