Layoffs at Meta, Amazon, Visa: The 2026 Cuts HR Teams Must Track

Amazon has eliminated roughly 16,000 corporate roles globally since January, and it's one of dozens of major employers — including Meta, Visa, Atlassian and UPS — cutting jobs in 2026. The throughline for many: artificial intelligence is shrinking headcount needs, and HR teams are the ones managing the fallout.

A World Economic Forum survey found about 41% of companies worldwide expected to shrink their workforces within five years because of AI — even as jobs in big data, fintech and AI are set to double by 2030. Business Insider tracked roughly 65 major layoff announcements in 2025; the 2026 count keeps climbing across tech, finance, retail and media, while unemployment overall hasn't spiked. Economists call it low-fire, low-hire.

Which employers are cutting, and by how much?

The largest single announcements of 2026:

• Amazon: ~16,000 corporate roles in January, on top of 14,000 in October 2025, plus a further "relatively small" round in Selling Partner Services in May. SVP Beth Galetti framed the January cuts as an attack on bureaucracy.
• UPS: 30,000 operational jobs in 2026, mostly via attrition and a second voluntary separation program for full-time drivers, with 24 building closures identified for the first half of the year.
• British American Tobacco: 9,000 jobs by year-end — about one-fifth of its workforce, excluding the US arm.
• Citi: continuing cuts toward its 10% / 20,000-employee reduction plan first detailed in January 2024, projected to save up to $2.5 billion.
• Heineken: 5,000-6,000 roles over two years.
• Oracle: headcount down 21,000 people, or 13%, to 141,000 as of May 31 — with $1.84 billion in severance and exit costs in fiscal 2026, up from $374 million.
• Volvo: 2,500 jobs globally, including 2,000 in Sweden, targeting roughly $530 million in savings.

Where does AI factor in?

Several CEOs named AI directly. Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes announced 1,600 cuts — about 10% of staff — on March 11, with $225-$236 million in restructuring charges. "It would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn't change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does," he said.

Cloudflare cut 20% of its workforce (more than 1,100 people) on May 7 after internal AI use climbed over 600% in three months. Coinbase's Brian Armstrong cut 14% of staff on May 5, saying engineers now "ship in days what used to take a team weeks." Standard Chartered plans to cut 15% of corporate function roles over four years; CEO Bill Winters told Reuters it's "replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital" with investment capital.

Wisetech is cutting 2,000 jobs, or 30% of its staff, with CEO Zubin Appoo declaring "the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over." American Express took a $336 million restructuring charge to cut about 5% of its workforce — roughly 3,000-4,000 of its 77,000 employees. Visa confirmed about 2,600 cuts, roughly 7%, with CEO Ryan McInerney writing that "AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution."

Others pushing AI-forward restructurings: Pinterest (under 15%), Intuit (17%, with $300-$340 million in charges), Wix (20% of ~5,300 workers), Groupon (up to 400 roles), Freshworks (11%), Crypto.com (12%) and GM (600 salaried IT roles, refilling toward AI-native skills). Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs targeting over £1 billion in 2027 savings, with 60% of affected roles in support functions "including fewer developers as AI makes our people more productive." Tailwind, a small web tool, cut three of its four engineers, citing AI-driven revenue decline.

Not every cut is AI-driven. Epic Games cut 20% (over 1,000 people) as Fortnite engagement fell — CEO Tim Sweeney insisted the layoffs "aren't related to AI." Boeing is trimming 5% of its ~50,000-person commercial airplanes division after missing 737 delivery targets. Saks Global cut 16% of corporate staff after a January Chapter 11 filing. Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs, mostly tech, under its "win now" plan.

What does this mean for separation packages?

Severance terms vary widely, and they're a benchmarking signal. Intuit offered laid-off US employees 16 weeks of base pay plus two weeks per year of tenure. Sprout Social, cutting 260 jobs (20%), offered 12 weeks' severance, an extra week per year of tenure, six months of fully paid health benefits, and cash equal to equity that would have vested within 90 days.

Meta's March 25 cuts hit Reality Labs, Facebook, recruiting, sales and global operations as the company redirects hundreds of billions toward AI infrastructure. Walmart told staff on May 12 it would cut or relocate about 1,000 corporate jobs, its second straight year of trimming after 1,500 roles in May 2025.

With Business Insider tracking announcements via WARN notices and company disclosures, HR leaders should expect the AI-justified restructuring wave — and the skills-reshaping questions it forces — to keep running into 2027.