Amazon just confirmed it’s cutting about 16,000 corporate roles worldwide, the second big wave of layoffs in roughly three months and part of a broader plan that totals around 30,000 corporate reductions since October.

The “why” is pretty straightforward: Amazon is trying to run leaner and move faster after years of expansion, especially the pandemic era when it hired aggressively to keep up with surging demand. Now growth has normalized, and leadership is treating excess layers—particularly in corporate org charts—as friction that slows decisions and dilutes accountability. In Amazon’s internal note, HR chief Beth Galetti framed it as “reducing layers,” “increasing ownership,” and “removing bureaucracy.”

There’s also a major technology shift happening underneath all of this: Amazon (like the rest of Big Tech) is leaning hard into AI and automation to handle more routine work and to boost productivity across teams. Reuters notes the cuts underscore how improved AI assistants are changing corporate workforce needs, and Amazon has previously pointed to AI-driven automation as a reason corporate roles may shrink.

The company has been pruning or exiting initiatives that aren’t hitting the bar—Reuters points out Amazon is also closing its remaining Fresh grocery stores and Go markets and dropping the Amazon One biometric payment system—while continuing to invest and hire in “strategic areas.” The layoffs are meant to free up budget and attention for the businesses Amazon believes will matter most going forward, rather than carrying the overhead of teams and management layers built for a different era.

As for where the cuts land, the full breakdown hasn’t been publicly detailed, but Reuters reports employees across multiple groups—including parts of AWS, Alexa, Prime Video, devices, advertising, and last-mile delivery—said they were impacted. Amazon is offering many U.S.-based employees time to look for internal roles, and severance/transition support for those who don’t land elsewhere inside the company.