Amazon Confirms 16,000 Layoffs, Including at AWS

Amazon plans to cut some 16,000 workers across the company, in its latest round of layoffs. Job losses were first rumored last week, and then accidentally leaked when a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a SVP at cloud division Amazon Web Services (AWS), was included in a calendar invitation sent to a number of Amazon workers.

The 'Project Dawn' invitation said: "This is a continuation of the work we've been doing for more than a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy, so that we can move faster for customers.

"Changes like this are hard on everyone. These decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success," it added.