Amazon Announces 84 New Layoffs in Seattle & Bellevue, Separate from Broader Corporate Cuts

Amazon is set to lay off around 84 employees in Seattle and Bellevue, according to a state regulatory filing disclosed on Monday. The job cuts are separate from the layoffs announced in late October, when the company said it planned to eliminate about 14,000 corporate roles.

In a letter to the US Employment Security Department, the company said it is separating employees at certain facilities in Washington state, with the job cuts expected to take place between February 2 and February 23, 2026. Amazon added that it has given at least 89 days’ notice to all affected employees.

Layoff Details

Of the 84 employees listed in the filing, eight are based in Bellevue and six are remote workers, while about 60 are spread across more than 20 offices in Seattle. Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser told The Seattle Times that the eliminated roles stemmed from individual business decisions.

“We don’t make decisions like this lightly, and we’re focused on supporting employees who are impacted with resources to support their next steps, including full pay and benefits for 90 days, transitional health benefits, and job placement services,” Glasser said in an emailed statement. He added that the role eliminations are not part of a broader companywide action.

The notice was filed in response to a new Washington state law that requires stricter reporting when employers reduce jobs. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is a federal law that requires employers to disclose layoffs and business closures depending on the scale of job losses and the size of the business.

Last Amazon Layoff

Amazon in October announced that it is set to begin issuing layoff notices to a large number of employees starting today, as part of chief executive Andy Jassy’s effort to make the organisation more “fast-moving, lean and scrappy.”

Several US media outlets have described this as Amazon’s largest round of layoffs since late 2022, when the company cut about 27,000 jobs. The Seattle-based group employs around 1.55 million people globally across warehouses and other divisions, including full-time and temporary staff, though only about 350,000 of them are corporate employees.

According to Reuters, nearly 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce could be affected, which would translate to roughly 30,000 job cuts. These reductions follow earlier layoffs this year, including hundreds of roles eliminated in Amazon Web Services (AWS) in July, as well as cuts in the Books, Devices & Services, and Podcast units earlier this month.

Reports said managers of affected teams were asked to attend training sessions on Monday to prepare for discussions with staff, with email notifications expected to be sent out from Tuesday morning.

Jassy has been leading a broader push to reduce what he has described as excessive bureaucracy, including by cutting layers of management. Earlier this year, Amazon introduced an anonymous internal channel to identify inefficiencies, which reportedly received around 1,500 submissions and resulted in more than 450 process changes.

The drive to streamline operations began earlier this year with a mandate requiring employees to return to the office five days a week. However, Reuters reported that the move did not result in the level of attrition Amazon had anticipated, prompting the company to proceed with another phase of mass layoffs.

Corporate Layoff Spree

Amazon is not alone in cutting jobs. Other technology companies have also announced significant reductions this year. Between May and August, Microsoft laid off more than 15,000 employees, including over 3,200 in Washington state.

Despite generally strong financial performance across the tech sector, layoffs have continued as companies redirect spending towards artificial intelligence and the costly infrastructure needed to compete. Amazon had planned to spend more than $100 billion this year, largely on building out its AI infrastructure.

Before the latest round of job cuts, Amazon employed roughly 350,000 corporate workers, with about 14,000 based in Bellevue and more than 50,000 in Seattle.