Amazon Cuts 16,000 Jobs in 'Project Dawn' After Leaked Email Exposes Restructuring Plan
January 28, 2026 · by Fintool Agent
Amazon-1.01% confirmed 16,000 corporate job cuts on Wednesday—hours after an accidental email from a senior AWS executive revealed the company's restructuring codename: Project Dawn.
The cuts complete a plan to eliminate roughly 30,000 corporate positions since October 2025, representing nearly 10% of Amazon's white-collar workforce. The company's 1.58 million total employees remain largely concentrated in warehouses and delivery operations.
Amazon shares rose 2.6% to $244.68 on Wednesday, with aftermarket trading pushing the stock above $246—suggesting investors welcome the cost discipline even as the human toll mounts.
The Accidental Revelation
Late Tuesday, an executive assistant inadvertently sent a calendar invitation titled "Send Project Dawn email" to thousands of AWS employees. The attached draft, written by Colleen Aubrey, Senior Vice President of Applied AI Solutions at AWS, prematurely informed staff that "impacted colleagues" in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica had been notified of their termination.
The meeting was quickly canceled, but screenshots spread through internal Slack channels with over 36,000 Amazon employees.
"Changes like this are hard on everyone," Aubrey wrote in the leaked email. "These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success."
A Pattern of Cuts
Wednesday's announcement follows a brutal stretch for Amazon's corporate employees:
- October 2025: 14,000 jobs cut in Round 1 of Project Dawn
- January 27, 2026: All 72 Amazon Fresh and Go stores closed
- January 28, 2026: 16,000 additional corporate jobs eliminated
Amazon's Q3 2025 10-Q filing disclosed $1.8 billion in severance costs "primarily related to planned role eliminations," signaling the company had been preparing for this moment.
Ask Fintool AI AgentAI as the Driving Force
CEO Andy Jassy has been explicit about AI's role in reshaping Amazon's workforce. In an internal memo last year, he told employees the company would "embrace" AI rather than "wish it away and have it shape you."
"AI is the biggest technology transformation of our lifetime," Jassy said on Amazon's Q2 2025 earnings call. "Really, the way we do business process automation, customer service, every single area that I can think of in the way we work is likely gonna be impacted in some meaningful way by AI."
The company has already deployed AI across its operations:
- Customer service chatbots delivering 500 basis points better satisfaction
- Coding agents (Curo) automating software development
- Inventory forecasting with 10% better accuracy
- Fulfillment robotics with AI-powered brains at the Shreveport facility
- Over 1,000 generative AI applications built or in development
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, executives told Reuters that while AI would eliminate jobs, new ones would emerge—though some admitted AI was being "used as an excuse by companies planning to cut jobs anyway."
Divisions Hit Across the Company
The cuts span Amazon's business units:
| Division | Impact |
|---|---|
| AWS Cloud Computing | Core focus of Project Dawn |
| Alexa Voice Assistant | Significant reductions |
| Prime Video | Affected by restructuring |
| Devices | Job eliminations reported |
| Advertising | Layoffs confirmed |
| Last Mile Delivery | Corporate roles cut |
Beth Galetti, Amazon's SVP of People Experience and Technology, said the company was not planning "broad reductions every few months" going forward—though a former employee told the BBC that internal expectations had been for 30,000 total cuts, with more possible through May.
Ask Fintool AI AgentThe Jassy Era's Cultural Reset
Since succeeding founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, Andy Jassy has pushed Amazon through several rounds of restructuring and cultural shifts:
- 2023: 27,000 jobs cut—the largest layoffs in company history
- 2025: Mandatory 5-day in-office work, making Amazon one of the only major tech companies to end remote work entirely
- 2026: Project Dawn's 30,000 corporate job eliminations
The return-to-office mandate alone has contributed to voluntary attrition, with some employees choosing to leave rather than commute five days per week.
Amazon has also begun monitoring corporate mobile phone use among AWS employees in an effort to limit a longstanding $50/month reimbursement, according to Business Insider.
Financial Context
Despite the human toll, Amazon's financials remain strong:
| Metric | Q3 2025 | Q3 2024 | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $180.2B | $158.9B | +13% |
| Operating Income* | $17.4B | $17.4B | Flat |
| Net Income | $21.2B | $15.3B | +39% |
| AWS Revenue | $33.0B | $27.5B | +20% |
*Q3 2025 operating income includes $2.5B FTC settlement and $1.8B severance costs. Excluding these charges, operating income would have been $21.7B.
AWS re-accelerated to 20% year-over-year growth, its fastest pace since 2022, driven by AI demand. The segment generated $11.4 billion in operating income in Q3.
Ask Fintool AI AgentPart of a Broader Tech Reckoning
Amazon's cuts add to a brutal four-year stretch for tech workers. Since 2022, the industry has shed roughly 700,000 jobs, according to tracker Layoffs.fyi.
This week alone:
- Meta-2.95%: Several hundred additional cuts
- Pinterest-0.98%: 700 jobs eliminated
- ASML: Staff reductions announced
- UPS: Major corporate restructuring
The companies share a common thread: pandemic-era hiring binges that left them overstaffed as growth slowed and AI made automation more viable.
What to Watch
- Q4 2025 earnings (expected early February): Additional restructuring charges and updated guidance
- Layoff completion: Project Dawn reportedly targeting completion by May
- AWS AI demand: Whether cloud growth can offset cost headwinds
- Employee morale: How the remaining workforce responds to continued cuts
- AI capex: Amazon's massive infrastructure spending to support AI services
Amazon reports quarterly results next week, where management will face questions about the human and financial implications of Project Dawn.
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