Amazon lays off employees in book department, affecting Goodreads, Kindle, moving forward with organizational changes

Amazon cuts jobs in book department, affects Goodreads-Kindle, increases efficiency and reduces management processes, moves forward to reorganize, reduce complexity, while the stock price is still down more than 5% since the beginning of the year.

On June 6, 2025, at 9:06 AM, Reuters reported that Amazon announced on Thursday that it had reduced the number of employees in its book division, including the book review website Goodreads and units related to Kindle. The company stated that fewer than 100 employees were affected and that the decision was aimed at increasing efficiency and improving the organizational structure in line with its business plan.

“In our ongoing effort to make our teams and programs more efficient and aligned with our company’s plans, we have made the difficult decision to cut a small number of roles within our book organization,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.

Amazon has made piecemeal layoffs in the past, previously cutting headcount in its devices and services unit, its Wondery podcast division, its stores, and its communications team.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company is undertaking a program to reduce complexity and hierarchies within the organization, specifically by reducing the number of managers.

However, Amazon added about 4,000 more employees in the first quarter of this year compared to the final quarter of last year, data released last month showed.

Amazon shares closed up 0.3% on Thursday, but are down about 5.6 percent year-to-date. The layoffs at the book division were first reported by Business Insider.

Reference: reuters.com

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