US technology giant Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs - hours after it told staff about a new round of global redundancies in an email apparently sent in error.
The email, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday and refers to a swathe of employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica having been laid off as part of an effort to strengthen the company. The message was apparently shared by mistake, as it was quickly cancelled.
Early on Wednesday, Amazon announced job reductions as part of a plan to remove bureaucracy at the firm.
Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said on Wednesday it was not planning to make broad reductions every few months, referring to Amazon's announcement of 14,000 corporate job cuts in October.
While many teams finalized their organizational changes in October, other teams did not complete that work until now, she said.
Amazon employs around 1.5 million people globally, with around 350,000 in corporate roles. The firm has not disclosed where the latest job losses will fall or which countries will be affected.
On Tuesday, a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was mistakenly sent out, detailing the impending layoffs and referencing a project codenamed Dawn associated with the job cuts.
Amazon's restructuring seems part of a wider strategy under CEO Andy Jassy, which has included multiple rounds of job cuts and a shift towards a more stringent workplace culture. Many employees were already aware of the potential cuts, as the firm has been hinting towards further redundancies as part of ongoing restructuring efforts.
In an email to employees, Jassy remarked that the current period was a time to rethink the company's operations, a sentiment echoed in their recent decisions to close grocery stores and refocus on their Whole Foods Market business.
