Amazon Orders Employees to Relocate to Seattle and Other Hubs

The Amazon Inc. headquarters in Seattle, Washington, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. Seattle is joining liberal strongholds such as San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, in cracking down on drug-riddled areas to stem a spiraling crisis tied to fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid. Photo by David Ryder /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc. is ordering some corporate employees to move closer to their managers and teams, roiling a workforce already worried about job cuts and warnings from the top that artificial intelligence will shrink their ranks in the coming years.

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Workers are being told to relocate to such cities as Seattle; Arlington, Virginia; and Washington DC, which in some cases would require them to move across the country, according to people familiar with the situation. Amazon is mostly rolling out the mandate in one-on-one meetings and town halls rather than sending out a mass email, said the people, who requested anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss company plans.  

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One of the people said the relocation policy will affect thousands of employees on several teams. Mid-career professionals with children in school and partners in established careers are reluctant to make big moves in light of Amazon’s belt-tightening efforts.

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An Amazon spokesperson said “for more than a year now, some teams have been working to bring their teammates closer together to help them be as effective as possible, but there isn’t a one-size-fits all approach and there hasn’t been a change in our approach as a company.”

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Amazon employees have been sharing information about the relocation mandate on the company’s internal slack channels, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. One employee said their manager informed the team of the need to relocate and told them they had 30 days to make a decision. Then they had 60 days to either resign or begin their relocation process, according to the person, who said they were told there would be no severance for employees who resigned in lieu of relocating.

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The company spokesperson said “we hear from the majority of our teammates that they love the energy from being located together, and whenever someone chooses to or is asked to relocate, we work with them to offer support based on their individual circumstances.”

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When Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy ordered employees to return to the office five days a week beginning earlier this year, there was no requirement that they move to specific offices. Amazon has satellite workplaces around the country, including major metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin, giving workers some flexibility about where they lived. Many employees were hired to fully remote positions during the pandemic.

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In 2022, Jassy initiated Amazon’s biggest-ever round of corporate job cuts, which ultimately eliminated 27,000 positions across the Seattle-based company. There have since been several smaller rounds of reductions targeting particular departments.

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Telling workers to relocate will likely prompt some to quit, which can be a less expensive way to reduce headcount than executing layoffs and paying severance packages.

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Jassy on Tuesday said he expects the company’s workforce to shrink in coming years due to AI advancements that will be capable of performing some employee functions. The announcement, while not entirely unexpected, set off a round of hand-wringing on internal messaging boards.  

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