Amazon has laid off 250 employees. The cut has been made in the company’s ‘devices unit’, which makes products such as the Kindle e-reader and the Echo smart speaker. These layoffs have had the biggest impact on positions related to software development. According to a Reuters report, Amazon notified affected employees of their terminations in an early morning email and text message. The report cites an email from Amazon Vice President Cheri Robinson. Robinson said the company conducted a “complete review of its structure,” which led to the decision to eliminate some positions.

Sending early morning emails in layoff cases is nothing new. Before this, companies like Meta and Oracle also informed about the dismissal of their employees through email. Amazon confirmed the layoffs in a statement. “We have taken the difficult decision to eliminate some positions,” a company spokesperson said. Although the company did not disclose how many positions were affected, as per the report, 250 employees have been laid off.

Why is Amazon laying off employees?

According to a spokesperson, the layoffs will help Amazon “operate more efficiently and better align with its product roadmap.” A day before the decision, Amazon released a September memo from its engineering leadership, which discussed the role of developers in the age of AI. The memo says we all have to embrace this change and take the time to learn, or we will be left behind. It was also said that AI will play the most important role in software engineering work. The layoff comes at a time when Amazon has introduced five new Alexa-powered devices. These include the newly designed ‘Echo Show 16’ smart display, ‘Alexa Photo Frame’ and ‘Echo Time’ bedside clock. These devices are manufactured by the ‘Device Unit’ of the company itself.

Amazon has done this before

Earlier this month, Amazon decided to lay off nearly 1,000 employees from its core retail division. In January, the company announced 16,000 job cuts, while 14,000 people were laid off in October last year as well. On the other hand, the company is investing billions of dollars in the field of AI. It is believed that Amazon could invest up to $220 billion in AI this year alone. But Amazon isn’t the only company cutting jobs. According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 1,35,000 tech jobs have been lost this year alone. Recently, Dropbox announced that it was laying off 9 percent of its global workforce. On the other hand, Microsoft has given approximately 60,000 employees – a quarter of its total workforce – the option to voluntarily quit their jobs.