Amazon has delivered a blunt ultimatum to thousands of its corporate employees. Workers have been told they must relocate to designated company hubs or leave the company entirely. Those who resign will not receive any severance pay. The policy, which affects employees across the United States, is part of a sweeping effort to reorganize Amazon’s workforce as the company invests heavily in artificial intelligence and rethinks how teams should operate after years of remote work.
What Amazon Told Employees
According to reports from Bloomberg and The Seattle Times, Amazon managers have been holding private meetings and town halls to inform staff about the new relocation requirements. In one example, an employee shared in an internal messaging platform that their manager had given them 30 days to decide whether they would move to one of Amazon’s main hubs. If they agreed, they had another 60 days to start the relocation process. If they refused, they would be expected to resign, with no severance pay to cushion the blow.
One Amazon spokesperson told The Seattle Times, “For more than a year now, some teams have been working to bring their teammates closer together to help them be as effective as possible, but there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, and there hasn’t been a change in our approach as a company.”
The company is focusing on consolidating teams in three key locations: Seattle, Arlington in Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Workers in other cities like New York, Boston, Austin, and Los Angeles are being asked to move, even though many were hired during the pandemic specifically for regional or remote roles.
The Scale of the Impact
Amazon employs around 1.56 million people worldwide, including about 350,000 corporate workers. While the company has not shared the exact number of employees affected by the relocation policy, internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg suggest that thousands of workers across several teams are being impacted.
Mid-career professionals, especially those with children in school and spouses with established careers, are finding the decision particularly difficult. Many employees feel they are being forced to choose between their job security and their personal lives.
One employee told Bloomberg, “It feels like they are trying to get rid of people without calling it a layoff.” Others said they were surprised by the lack of severance options, especially after years of service.
Amazon leadership has presented the policy as an effort to improve collaboration and restore a sense of unity that was lost during the pandemic. The company believes bringing employees together in the same physical space will help teams work faster, share ideas more easily, and make decisions with fewer delays.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has insisted this is not just about cutting costs. In a recent memo, he wrote, “We hear from the majority of our teammates that they love the energy from being located together.” He added that working side by side is essential to building “a stronger culture.”
However, some employees and analysts believe there is more to it. Since 2022, Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 corporate workers, making it the largest wave of job cuts in the company’s history. Smaller reductions have continued since then. Many believe the relocation requirement is a strategy to quietly reduce headcount without triggering formal layoffs or severance payouts.
One observer told Bloomberg, “This is a cost-efficient way for Amazon to thin the ranks without having to say publicly that they are laying people off.”
The Role of Artificial Intelligence
Another factor fueling anxiety is Amazon’s rapid move into artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, CEO Andy Jassy sent a memo to employees predicting that AI would lead to a smaller workforce over time. He called generative AI “a once-in-a-lifetime technology” that would eventually transform how Amazon operates.
In his message, Jassy wrote, “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.” He added, “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we gain efficiency from using AI extensively across the company.”
Amazon plans to spend $105 billion in capital investments this year, and most of that will go toward AI and data centers. The company has already started using AI to speed up deliveries in warehouses and to automate customer service functions.
For employees, this means an uncertain future. Many wonder whether their roles will be replaced by AI systems and whether the relocation requirement is a way to encourage voluntary resignations before further automation arrives.
The End of Remote Flexibility
The relocation mandate also signals the end of the flexibility that Amazon offered during the pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, the company hired thousands of people into fully remote or hybrid positions. Earlier this year, Amazon announced employees must return to the office five days a week. However, at the time, workers were not told they would have to move to specific cities.
Now, that has changed. One employee who spoke to Bloomberg anonymously said, “During the pandemic, they told us we could be based anywhere. Now we are being told to pack up and go to Seattle or leave.”
For many employees, this reversal has created a feeling of betrayal. The combination of relocation requirements, no severance, and looming AI changes has left workers wondering if they have any place in Amazon’s long-term plans.
Amazon’s push to relocate employees is expected to continue as the company works to meet its goals for productivity, innovation, and cost control. Whether this strategy pays off remains to be seen, but the impact on thousands of workers and their families is already clear.
As one staff member summed it up, “We are being asked to choose between our stability and our loyalty to a company that seems to be moving on without us.”
