Seattle braces as Amazon cuts 2,300 jobs locally
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A bird's-eye view of the Amazon campus, including the Doppler building and the Spheres. Photo: Genna Martin/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Amazon trimmed about 2,300 Seattle-area jobs this week — including hundreds at its South Lake Union and Bellevue offices — as part of a 14,000-person global layoff that marks one of the tech giant's largest white-collar cuts to date, according to a new state filing.
Why it matters: Seattle's economy leans heavily on Amazon's highly paid, corporate workforce, whose spending fuels much of downtown's housing, retail and restaurant activity.
Driving the news: Amazon executive Beth Galetti said in a Tuesday memo to employees that the cuts, which hit engineering and recruiting particularly hard, are a response to automation and artificial intelligence as well as an effort to reduce layers of bureaucracy.
- It was Amazon's largest round of job cuts since 2023, when the company eliminated 27,000 roles in two waves, per The Associated Press.
By the numbers: Software development roles were hardest hit, with more than 600 positions cut statewide, per a notice detailing the layoffs.
- Amazon's Doppler building at 2021 Seventh Ave. saw the most cuts, with about 361 jobs lost — more than any other Washington site, according to the state filing.
- Four other Seattle towers together accounted for nearly 600 more trims, bringing the city's total to roughly 1,800 cuts.
- 116 Washington-based remote workers were also cut, per the notice.
Between the lines: The City of Seattle's August economic forecast warned of cracks forming in the local job market.
- That outlook showed the local job market weakening even before the layoffs, with slower growth than the nation overall and steep drops in professional and business services, the category that includes tech.
- It also highlighted Seattle's heavy dependence on big tech: about 75% of Seattle's payroll-tax revenue comes from just 10 companies, nine of them in the tech sector.
The big picture: Amazon's move mirrors a broader trend in tech: heavy investment in automation and AI, which is shrinking the need for human software engineers and recruiters, Gil Luria, a senior analyst with D.A. Davidson, told Reuters in June.
The bottom line: Amazon's layoffs will ripple through downtown — from workers and families to small businesses that depend on weekday foot traffic and the city's tax base, said Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Association.
- "In addition, these jobs buttress our tax base that helps fund the city services we all depend on," he said.
What's next: The Seattle-King County Workforce Development Council has been holding rapid-response workshops to connect laid-off employees with resources and jobs, Markham McIntyre, director of the Seattle Office of Economic Development, told Axios.
- It's critical, he said, "to have the pieces in place that make our economy resilient and ensure there are opportunities to keep talented people here."
