Pink slips started going out this week at tech giant Amazon, the latest in a wave of late-year layoffs.

On Tuesday, Amazon laid off 14,000 corporate workers, about 4% of its worker population. Reuters reports that the move is part of a larger reduction that could affect 30,000 employees, slashing the corporate workforce by 10%.

While AI is often cited in recent headlines as the culprit behind workforce reductions, a public memo from Amazon leadership instead pointed to successful efforts at “reducing layers, increasing ownership and helping reduce bureaucracy.”

That’s not to say Amazon isn’t acknowledging AI as a factor in the layoffs, however. As tech creates demand for businesses to move more quickly, Amazon is “convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business,” wrote Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon.

Amazon layoffs: the latest example of a ‘talent remix’?

The Amazon layoffs likely reflect a “strategic ‘talent remix,’ ” say researchers at Gartner. It appears the organization is “reallocating resources to high-priority business areas, rather than [the layoffs] directly resulting from AI-driven productivity gains.”

The news comes as UPS this week also announced it has already cut 48,000 jobs this year, and Target unveiled plans to eliminate 1,800 corporate roles.

Despite the high-profile nature of the layoffs, Gartner research found that less than 1% of the cuts it tracked in the first half of this year were directly related to AI taking over jobs.

“AI is not yet ready to replace the large majority of jobs,” researchers say. “In most cases, staffing shifts appear to be a byproduct of freeing up capital expenditures for investments and not a direct consequence of AI replacing human roles.”

Regardless of how influential AI is over potential layoffs, HR has a critical part play in the process, says Erin DeVito, general manager North America at experiential learning company Impact International.

“HR’s role is to keep the human conversation alive, ensuring efficiency doesn’t come at the cost of engagement, capability and culture,” DeVito says. “Technology can scale output, but people drive learning, creativity and trust—the things that sustain an organization through disruption for the long game.”

Playing the long game for talent

Emphasizing the long view will be essential for HR leaders if workforce reductions are on the horizon. Gartner’s research finds that 65% of organizations have undertaken cost-cutting efforts in recent years; yet just 11% actually sustained lower costs through a third year.

Read the full article here.