Amazon.com Inc. is gearing up for one of the most significant workplace shifts in its history, replacing over half a million US jobs with robots by 2027. According to a report by The New York Times, which cited internal documents and interviews with executives, America’s second-largest employer is moving rapidly towards large-scale automation to cut costs and boost efficiency.
Amazon’s US workforce has more than tripled since 2018, reaching 1.2 million employees. However, internal projections suggest that the company could “avoid or replace” as many as 600,000 positions within the next two years through robotic automation.
Executives reportedly told Amazon’s board that the company aims to double its product sales by 2033 without increasing its workforce. To achieve that, Amazon’s robotics division has set an ambitious goal, to automate 75% of its operations.
The documents reviewed by NYT show that Amazon’s automation teams prefer to use softer terms such as “advanced technology” or “cobot” (collaborative robot) instead of “robot” or “artificial intelligence,” underscoring efforts to rebrand automation as human-assisting rather than job-replacing.
By reducing its dependency on human labor, Amazon expects to save around 30 cents per item picked, packed, and shipped, a massive efficiency boost given the company’s scale.
“Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate,” said Daron Acemoglu, Nobel-winning MIT economist. “If these plans pan out, one of the biggest employers in the United States will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator.”
Amazon’s response
In response, Amazon said the documents cited were incomplete and did not reflect its full hiring strategy. A company spokesperson, Kelly Nantel, pointed out that Amazon still plans to hire 250,000 workers for the upcoming holiday season, emphasizing that automation will complement — not completely replace — human roles.
Layoffs continue across divisions
The automation drive comes amid ongoing layoffs. In May, the company cut 100 jobs in its Devices and Services division, which manages Alexa and Echo products. Earlier this year, dozens of communications roles were also eliminated to streamline operations.
Even within Amazon Web Services (AWS), recently hit by a major outage, the company has reportedly reduced roles across teams. Meanwhile, in its Human Resources division, which employs over 10,000 people globally, Amazon is said to be planning a 15% workforce reduction.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has openly acknowledged the trend, saying, “As we deploy more AI agents and automation, we will need fewer people doing some jobs that are being done today.”
Since 2022, Amazon has already reduced its global workforce by 27,000 employees, signaling that automation may soon reshape not just the warehouse floor — but the future of work itself.
