Insights · Layoffs
Groundwork research · Published October 20, 2026 · Data as of June 30, 2026 · 2 min read
Amazon is in the news again for job cuts. The state layoff notices in our records list 30 filings from October 13, 2025 to October 12, 2026, naming 9,746 workers. The latest is dated October 1, 2026 and covers sites in Seattle, Bellevue, Sumner, WA.
Employers file a WARN notice with the state before a mass layoff or a site closing. Our snapshot runs through October 12, 2026, and the year counted starts on October 13, 2025. In that year the records hold 30 notices for Amazon, and the notices name 9,746 workers.
The year before, the records hold 10 notices naming 1,580 workers. A worker total is a floor, because some notices list no headcount.
Workers named in layoff notices, by year
A WARN notice is an advance filing. It tells a state agency that layoffs are planned at a site, and the dates on it describe the plan. The latest notice in our records is dated October 1, 2026, with sites in Seattle, Bellevue, Sumner, WA. Company announcements and press coverage can describe wider cuts than the state filings list, and the filings describe the sites and headcounts the employer reported to each state.
Amazon also sponsors skilled workers. The records hold 29,374 certified H-1B wage filings for Amazon. The most common occupation is Software Developers, with 14,236 filings and a median offered wage of $166,000. Data Scientists follow with 2,570 filings at $143,400, and Computer and Information Systems Managers come third with 1,936 filings at $203,986.
Comparing the same months a year apart, filings fell by 24%: 5,197 in Jul–Sep 2024 against 3,954 in Jul–Sep 2025. The like-for-like trend is shrinking.
Certified H-1B filings, the same months a year apart
The Wage and Hour Division database lists 5 cases with findings for Amazon between 2016 and 2023, with $31,445 in back wages assessed for 14 employees. 5 of them include minimum wage and overtime findings. Amazon employs a very large workforce, and a count of records grows with the size of an employer.
Layoff notices cover the sites and headcounts an employer reports to a state, through October 12, 2026 in our snapshot. The H-1B filings cover certified wage filings across the months listed above. The wage case records run through 2023, and the latest case on file is dated February 27, 2023. Recent events can take months to reach any of these sources.
Wage-and-hour figures are concluded compliance actions in the Wage and Hour Division enforcement database, loaded July 14, 2026. A case counts once, in the year its findings end, and a case that appears under two statutes still counts once.
Layoff figures come from state WARN notices in the WARN Notice Register, current through October 12, 2026. A notice is the advance filing an employer with roughly 100 or more employees sends to a state agency before a layoff or closure. A notice that lists no headcount adds no workers to a total, so a worker total is a floor.
Hiring figures count certified H-1B wage filings (labor condition applications) in DOL's disclosure data, covering 15 months of DOL decisions (Jul–Sep 2024, Jul–Sep 2025, Oct 2025–Jun 2026). A filing is an employer's certified wage offer for a job, and a bigger employer files more.
The records cover cases DOL concluded and notices employers filed, and each figure describes what was recorded in them.
Layoff figures: how to read layoff notice data, what the notices can and cannot say and why some are missing.
Sources: DOL Open Data Portal, Wage and Hour Division enforcement data; WARN Notice Register; DOL Office of Foreign Labor Certification, LCA disclosure data.
Informational only; not legal, immigration, or financial advice.
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Wage data: U.S. Department of Labor OFLC LCA Disclosure Data and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS. LCA filings reflect sponsored-worker wage offers, which skew toward mid-large employers and specific occupations — treat any estimate built from a small sample cautiously. Informational only; not legal, immigration, or financial advice.