Amazon bungles layoffs plan with misfired internal email

Amazon.com Inc. employees who have been anticipating layoffs numbering in the thousands got one more thing to worry about late Tuesday—a meeting invite and email from a top executive that was sent prematurely.

Amazon had in October signalled that more layoffs could come in 2026 as it found “additional places we can remove layers”. (AFP)

The email from Amazon Senior Vice President Colleen Aubrey, reviewed by Bloomberg, scheduled a meeting for Wednesday morning that has since been canceled, titled “Project Dawn”. The email said “impacted colleagues” based in the US, Canada and Costa Rica had been notified, and referred to a separate message from Amazon’s HR chief Beth Galetti that does not appear to have been sent.

“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” the email from Aubrey stated. “The decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.”

Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The email quickly spread on internal message boards and social media sites like Reddit, where Amazon employees are sharing any hints they can glean about the scope of layoffs.

Amazon initiated a big round of job cuts in October, removing 14,000 corporate roles and gutting its video games division. At the time, Amazon signalled that more cuts could come in 2026 as it found “additional places we can remove layers”.