Amazon’s “Project Dawn”: 16,000 Roles Cut in Global “Anti-Bureaucracy” Drive

Amazon is doing a tough second part of its plan to cut costs in 2026. They are telling 16,000 people who work in the office that they do not have a job anymore. This plan is called “Project Dawn”. It is happening after they already cut 14,000 jobs at the end of 2025. So now Amazon has cut 10% of the people who work in the office in just four months. Amazon is really reducing the number of employees through this “efficiency reset” and “Project Dawn” is a big part of it. The “efficiency reset” by Amazon is having an impact, on the companys workforce.

The company is letting a lot of people go in North America. This is also affecting India in a big way. In India around 500 to 700 people who work for the company in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai are losing their jobs this week. The company is giving them what we call slips. This is a tough time for the employees of the company in these cities. The company is making these cuts, in India and it is going to affect a lot of people. India is feeling the impact of the companys decision in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai where the employees are being let go.

The War on “The Bureaucracy Tax”

Beth Galetti, who is, in charge of People Experience and Technology sent a memo to the staff. The company says it needs to get rid of some layers of management. CEO Andy Jassy wants Amazon to feel like a startup again. Amazon is a big tech company. A senior executive said that Amazon grew quickly and it made the company too slow. The company has many managers that is the problem. Amazon needs to change said the senior executive who is helping with the restructuring of Amazon. We are getting rid of some managers and extra paperwork. This extra paperwork and management is, like an obstacle that slows down our ability to make decisions quickly. The AI revolution is happening fast. We need to be able to make decisions just as fast. By removing these layers we are eliminating the bureaucracy tax that has held us back for so long. The bureaucracy tax is a problem that slows down our decision-making.

The divisions that got hurt the most include:

AWS (Cloud): Specifically teams within Bedrock (AI services), Redshift (data warehousing), and the ProServe consulting unit.

The people in charge of Retail and Prime had a time. The teams that handle subscriptions and the last part of the delivery process, which is the Delivery Experience lost a lot of good Software Development Engineers. These Software Development Engineers were very important to the Retail and Prime teams. The loss of these Software Development Engineers is a deal, for the people who manage Prime subscriptions and the Delivery Experience.

PXT (Human Resources): As hiring slows and internal AI tools take over recruitment and payroll queries, the HR division continues to be a primary target for downsizing.