New York, January 28, 2026, 09:43 EST — Regular session
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) shares climbed roughly 1% to hit $247.10 during early trading on the Nasdaq Wednesday.
The stock surged following the announcement that the company plans to eliminate around 16,000 corporate jobs, finalizing a broader effort to reduce about 30,000 positions since October. While this represents a small fraction of its 1.58 million total employees, it accounts for nearly 10% of its corporate staff. 1
Investors are demanding that the largest tech companies turn costly artificial intelligence investments into actual profits, not just buzz.
Amazon’s chief HR officer, Beth Galetti, described the restructuring as a move to “reduce layers, increase ownership, and remove bureaucracy” to make the company stronger. She added that most U.S.-based employees impacted will have 90 days to apply for other positions before severance kicks in. 2
Wall Street has shown jitters over signs that AI spending might be outpacing returns. Analysts forecast Amazon and other tech giants will boost AI investments by roughly 30%, pushing total outlays beyond $500 billion this year.
David Wagner of Aptus Capital Advisors noted that “proprietary ecosystems … are tough to penetrate,” highlighting the challenge investors face in identifying winners amid the growing AI competition. 3
The reshuffle leaked into staff inboxes as well. Amazon accidentally tipped off some Amazon Web Services employees about upcoming layoffs hours ahead of schedule, sending an email and meeting invite that named the plan “Project Dawn,” Reuters reported.
“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions at AWS, wrote in an email seen by Reuters. 4
Amazon is also streamlining beyond its organizational structure. On Tuesday, it announced plans to close its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh brick-and-mortar stores, converting some locations into Whole Foods Markets as it rolls out same-day delivery to additional U.S. cities this year.
Amazon admitted it “haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience” that supports the economics required for large-scale growth in its Amazon-branded grocery stores. 5
Analysts are focusing on the cost and cloud story. KeyBanc nudged up its price target for Amazon to $308 from $303, maintaining an “Overweight” rating—a buy signal—based on hopes that AWS will pick up steam again. 6
Amazon’s logistics landscape is changing as well. UPS announced plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs and shut down 24 facilities in 2026, scaling back deliveries for Amazon to focus on higher-margin operations.
“We intend to glide down another million pieces per day,” UPS CEO Carol Tome said, outlining the company’s strategy to further reduce its Amazon shipment volume. 7
Cost-cutting isn’t without risks. Sharp cuts can rattle teams in fast-paced areas like cloud and advertising. And a chaotic rollout could pull management’s focus at a time when Amazon needs smooth execution on fresh AI products and infrastructure.
Macro factors could stir things up further. The Federal Reserve will release its policy statement at 2:00 p.m. EST, with a press conference set for 2:30 p.m. That combo tends to rattle growth stocks. 8
Amazon’s next major event is its quarterly earnings report. The company plans to publish its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results on Feb. 5 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Investors will focus on AWS growth, profit guidance, and any hints from management about capital expenditures for data centers and chips. 9
