The draft email, written by senior vice president Colleen Aubrey and sent out via a calendar invitation, referred to employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica being affected by the layoffs. 

It was withdrawn shortly after being sent in error.

The calendar invite was titled “Send Project Dawn email,” the internal codename the technology giant is using for its workforce reduction programme.

Before the message was accidentally circulated, employees had not received any formal confirmation of redundancies, although rumours had been circulating since last week.

In the email, Aubrey wrote: “This is a continuation of the work we’ve been doing for more than a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy, so that we can move faster for customers.

“Changes like this are hard on everyone. These decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organisation and AWS for future success.”

Last week, the tech giant announced another round of layoffs as part of its plan to cut 30,000 corporate jobs. The latest reductions will affect 14,000 roles across Amazon Web Services (AWS), retail, Prime Video and human resources.

Amazon first revealed its plans to eliminate 30,000 jobs in October, claiming at the time that the cuts were largely driven by advances in AI.

RELATED STORIES

Amazon: What we know so far about latest job cuts

Amazon in talks to invest $10bn in OpenAI ahead of rumoured IPO

Amazon’s AWS cuts hundreds of jobs amid strategic review, downplays AI role