Amazon layoffs strike during Great Indian Festival 2026! Employees face fresh cuts as the company’s biggest shopping event gets underway

Amazon employees are facing a second series of job cuts, with this round hitting different areas of the company’s retail operation. The latest layoffs affected Indian, US and UK employees, involving “a small number” of white-collar jobs. Amazon has confirmed that roles were being reduced, with reports indicating that fewer than 1,000 white-collar employees were impacted globally.

It is the timing of this particular wave and where it has landed that is particularly noteworthy. The cuts are primarily occurring in Amazon’s Stores business, the part of the company responsible for its e-commerce operations. Employees started leaking the news via internal channels (e.g., Slack) as Amazon’s Great Indian Festival shopping event got underway.

In short, one part of the company was gearing up to host one of its biggest shopping days of the year while the other was dealing with job losses. It is also worth noting that the latest layoffs do not appear to be confined to just one area of Amazon’s business.

Reports suggest roles relating to customer service, selling partner services and marketplace support had been impacted.

To help understand the latest Amazon layoffs, one must consider what has occurred in the past. Between late 2025 and January 2026, Amazon eliminated 30,000 corporate jobs as part of a much bigger restructuring exercise. Its stated aim was to reduce costs and streamline operations, and compared to the 30,000 figure, the latest Amazon layoffs appear minuscule.

However, the relatively small nature of the latest cut does not necessarily mean the restructuring has ended. Rather, it suggests that Amazon is continuing its process of identifying where it wants to reduce staff, boost resources and reallocate strategic emphasis. A major restructuring exercise rarely impacts all areas of a business equally. Some elements tend to contract while others expand. The teams being cut are integral to its retail operations.

An important element of the bigger picture is Amazon’s increasing emphasis on artificial intelligence. The company currently finds itself in the process of boosting its investments in AI at the same time as it is reducing its corporate roles. It has also announced its intention to spend approximately $220 billion on data centres, chips and other infrastructure to help facilitate the push. This highlights the fact that Amazon is making major choices as to how it wants to evolve its operations.

It makes the current Amazon layoffs more complex than a simple “Amazon is cutting jobs” story. The company is reducing its workforce, but it is also preparing for a major investment in elements relating to AI. Both events can exist simultaneously, and for a worker, their concern may well be which role will eventually become redundant.

The latest Amazon layoffs may appear particularly surprising in the context of India because the company is continuing to invest significantly in the region. Earlier this year, Amazon opened a Bengaluru campus that it described as its second-largest office in Asia. Covering 1.1 million square feet, it was described to house more than 7,000 employees relating to its e-commerce, payments, technology and seller services.

This means that while Amazon clearly finds itself in a period of reduction when it comes to its workforce, it is still investing considerably in its India operations. Both can exist simultaneously because while the company is eliminating roles, it is also changing the nature of the work it expects in specific departments.

It is therefore more helpful to view the India aspect of Amazon’s latest layoffs as a reshuffling rather than a straight pullback. The company is continuing to invest, but the nature of its work is evolving. For a worker, that distinction is important because they cannot blindly assume their continued presence within Amazon will not lead to a further restructuring.

The latest Amazon layoffs therefore shows that a company can be growing, opening offices, running major sales events and investing billions in technology while reducing jobs in selected roles. Amazon’s latest moves speak to just how quickly the shape of a large workplace can change.