Amazon: Engineering & Gaming Sections Hit Hard During October Layoffs

In Amazon’s latest staff reductions in October, termed one of the largest retrenchment in the company’s history, over 14,000 employees were laid off. The laying off was taken up as part of restructuring effort and it impacted every wing in the company, from cloud services and devices, to advertising, retail and groceries.

However, records revealed that the engineering section was the most affected during the lay off. Over 4,700 layoffs were recorded in New York, California, New Jersey and Washington, and 40% of them were from the engineering section.

After the engineers, over 500 product managers and programme managers were the next affected, representing over 10% of the recorded cuts.

The restructuring had a strong impact on the Amazon’s gaming division, where significant role reductions — game designers, artists and producers, lost their jobs.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the job cut was decided as part of overhaul. Another round of job reduction is likely to be implemented in January, 2026.

Though Amazon said that AI was not the main cause behind the layoffs, Jassy told invesors that white-collar roles were likely to reduce in numbers as AI tools boost efficiency.

Even Beth Galetti, Amazon’s HR chief, in her memo to the staff said: “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before.”