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Amazon — a company that made more than $35 billion in profit in the first half of 2025 and is on track to spend more than $120 billion on AI this year — is laying off tens of thousands of people, citing its desire to slim down and “operate like the world’s largest startup.”
The overall message from Amazon reflected a familiar impulse in Corporate America to reduce headcount in the face of rising prices, an unpredictable trade war and a potential (though still largely speculative) artificial-intelligence revolution. Amazon isn’t alone: UPS on Tuesday announced it had cut some 48,000 workers this year; Target eliminated 1,800 corporate jobs last week “to be stronger, faster and better positioned” for the future, its new CEO said; and other spectacularly profitable tech players like Microsoft and Meta have also shed staff by the thousands recently.
But the impulse, which tends to please Wall Street in the short term, also amounts to a giant gamble on a technology that has yet to prove it can deliver the efficiencies its backers have long promised.
“I think we’re going to see a big trend where people are expecting a whole lot of this technology, and not everything we’re expecting will pan out,” said Sam Ransbotham, professor of business analytics at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.
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