Amazon to lay off 30,000 employees

U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon plans to lay off roughly 30,000 corporate employees starting on Tuesday, local media reported Monday.

Employees are expected to be notified of the layoffs by email beginning Tuesday morning. The cuts would affect nearly 10 percent of its corporate workforce.

As the second-largest private employer in the United States, Amazon has more than 1.54 million employees worldwide, mostly in warehouses and roughly 350,000 in corporate roles.

It marks another round of the company's rolling layoffs since 2022, which have resulted in more than 27,000 employees losing their jobs.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in June that the company's headcount could decline further as it embraces AI technologies. The company "will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," Jassy wrote in a memo to employees.

The "soft landing" of the China-EU electric vehicle case will greatly boost market confidence and inject new momentum into China-EU cooperation in automobile trade and investment, a spokeswoman of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said at a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.

He Yongqian, the spokeswoman, made the remarks after China and the European Union (EU) agreed on the necessity of providing general guidance on price undertakings for Chinese companies exporting battery electric vehicle (BEV) passenger cars to the EU.

"China and the EU simultaneously announced on Monday that they had achieved positive outcomes following multiple rounds of consultations on the EV case, a development that has drawn wide attention at home and abroad. Industry players from both sides have 'highly welcomed and fully endorsed' the outcome, saying the 'soft landing' of the case is expected to greatly boost market confidence and inject new momentum into China-EU cooperation in automobile trade and investment. Some EU politicians have described it as a positive step toward building a sustainable China-EU trade relationship, and said it demonstrated that resolving trade differences through partnership remains feasible," she said.

"Against the current international backdrop, China and the EU, acting in a spirit of mutual respect and within the framework of WTO rules, have properly addressed the EV case, which is of significant positive importance. The outcome will not only contribute to the sound development of China-EU economic and trade ties and help safeguard the stability of the global automotive industrial and supply chains, but will also send a clear and strong signal that both sides are willing to uphold a rules-based international trading order, setting a good example for countries to resolve differences through dialogue and consultation and injecting greater certainty and positive energy into global economic growth," she said.

"China appreciates the spirit of dialogue showed by the EU side and stands ready to work with the EU, building on the current positive outcomes, to further implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two sides, maintain dialogue and communication, and support stable industrial and supply chains on both sides, continue to deepen cooperation on the basis of market principles, and make active contributions to the global green transition," she added.