Thousands of Amazon employees woke up early Tuesday morning to find text messages informing them that they had been fired from their jobs. The American tech giant issued the notifications before workers even arrived at the office.

According to people familiar with the matter and screenshots reviewed by Business Insider, one message asked affected employees to check their personal or work email. Another text instructed them to contact a help desk about their employment status.

The layoffs came after a broader announcement by Amazon that it would cut around 14,000 corporate roles as part of a major restructuring tied to efficiency efforts and increased focus on artificial-intelligence tools.

Many of the impacted US employees worked as retail managers at Amazon. A memo from the company's HR head, Beth Galetti, shared internally via Slack, informed those affected would continue to receive full pay and benefits for 90 days, along with a severance package.

In a separate blog post published on Tuesday, Galetti explained that the reductions were prompted by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. She pointed out that Amazon was making these changes despite the company's strong performance.

Source:Ndtv