Laid off from Amazon.
Amazon's own layoff messages name what its severance includes without naming what it pays. In the corporate rounds most US employees got 90 days to land another role inside the company before severance started, and the 2026 store and warehouse closings left no severance terms on record.
At a glance
What's known about Amazon severance and layoffs
- 90 days before separation · Internal transfer window, 2025 and 2026 rounds
- 60 days paid, not expected to work · Notice, 2023 retail template
- Several weeks, scaled to length of service · Separation pay, 2023 round
- Transitional benefits, duration not published · Health coverage, 2023 round
- 90 days under the state WARN Act · New York notice requirement
- About $2.7 billion company-wide · Estimated severance costs, 2025
- $730 million · Severance charge, fourth quarter 2025
- No severance terms on record · 2026 store and warehouse closings
Recent Amazon layoffs
A 121-role Washington notice in August 2026, with terminations into October
A WARN notice reported on August 31, 2026 covered 121 Washington jobs across Seattle, Bellevue and Sumner, with termination dates between October 1 and October 27. Those workers got 90 days' notice and could apply for internal transfers before the layoffs became final, the same shape Amazon used in its larger corporate rounds.
Previous rounds
Amazon layoff history
If your role went in one of Amazon's corporate rounds, severance wasn't the first thing that happened. The October 2025 message and the January 2026 message both offered most US-based employees 90 days to look for a new role inside the company, with transition support starting only after that and described as severance pay, outplacement services, and health insurance benefits as applicable. October covered about 14,000 corporate roles, roughly 4% of an estimated 350,000 people, and January added approximately 16,000 more. In both rounds those 90 days ran on the payroll, which made the first decision how to spend them.
What Amazon has published names the parts of the package without their size. Its own messages list severance pay, outplacement, and health benefits and attach no weeks or dollars to any of them. The severance figures Amazon does put in writing are company-wide. Its annual report recorded approximately $2.7 billion of estimated severance costs for 2025, primarily related to planned role eliminations, with $1.8 billion of that in the third quarter and $730 million in the fourth. The fourth quarter release carried that same $730 million beside $610 million of asset impairments the company attributed primarily to physical stores. No per-person figure appears anywhere in it.
The one wave with per-person terms on record ran from November 2022 into 2023, when the cuts moved from recruiting and devices into retail and human resources. CNBC reported that US retail employees got full pay and benefits across a 60-day period, staying on the payroll without being expected to work, and that several weeks of severance followed, scaled to length of service, with a separation payment, transitional health benefits and job placement. New York's own WARN Act requires covered businesses to give 90 days' notice before a closing or a mass layoff, and businesses that skip it can be made to pay back wages and benefits plus a civil penalty.
The 2026 cuts landed differently. Amazon announced in January that it was closing its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores and converting various locations into Whole Foods, saying it hadn't yet built a distinctive enough customer experience with the right economic model to expand at scale, and that it was working wherever possible to help those team members find roles elsewhere in the company, including across its operations network. The Philadelphia filing alone covered nearly 1,000 Amazon Fresh employees across six stores, and our tracker holds a 983-job Pennsylvania filing and an 871-job New Jersey filing dated April 28, 2026.
The warehouse notices that followed published fewer package details. The Port St. Lucie notice covered 494 workers with separations running from September 17 to December 17, 2026, and Amazon had said affected staff might be eligible for transfers to nearby sites where positions were available, without detailing the package attached to it. So the number that matters sits in your own paperwork. Read what the agreement calls the payment, whether the weeks track your service, what happens to unvested stock, and how long coverage runs, then check all of it against the dates on your notice. Our tracker holds 199 Amazon filings in all, 138 of them since the start of 2025 covering 20,443 jobs across eleven states, and 79 in 2026 covering 16,729 jobs. Those counts cover the state archives we collect rather than every filing nationwide, and the WARN filings tracker shows what an employer reported for a given site and when.
Reporting on previous Amazon layoff rounds
August 2026 · 121 Washington jobs across Seattle, Bellevue and Sumner, in a WARN notice
Affected workers got 90 days' notice and could apply for internal transfers before the layoffs became final, with termination dates between October 1 and October 27. Terms not published.
July 2026 · 494 jobs at the Port St. Lucie fulfillment center in Florida
The notice put separations between September 17 and December 17, 2026. Amazon had said affected employees might be eligible for transfers to nearby facilities where positions were available, and hadn't detailed the package tied to that notice. Terms not published.
April 2026 · Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go store closings, with WARN filings across several states
Amazon said it was working wherever possible to help store team members find roles elsewhere in the company, including across its operations network. Our tracker holds a 983-job Pennsylvania filing and an 871-job New Jersey filing dated April 28, 2026. Terms not published.
January 2026 · About 16,000 roles across Amazon, announced in a message to employees
90 days for most US-based employees to find another role internally, then severance pay, outplacement services, and health insurance benefits as applicable. Exact amounts not published.
October 2025 · About 14,000 corporate roles, described as roughly 4% of an estimated 350,000 people
Most employees got 90 days to look for a new role internally, with recruiters prioritizing internal candidates, and transition support including severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits for anyone who didn't land one. Exact amounts not published.
Late 2022 through 2023 · Rolling waves, hitting recruiting and devices first, then retail and human resources
US retail employees got full pay and benefits across a 60-day period on the payroll without being expected to work, then several weeks of severance scaled to length of service, plus a separation payment, transitional health benefits and job placement.
How Amazon's layoffs compare to other companies
Google's January 2023 memo promised laid-off US staff a 16-week base severance plus two weeks for every year worked. Amazon's terms from the same month named a separation payment, transitional health benefits and job placement without attaching weeks to any of them. What Amazon has documented is the paid notice and the transfer window, so count those alongside whatever the separation payment turns out to be.
Your stock and equity
Amazon pay has historically leaned heavily on stock, and reporting on the January 2023 round couldn't establish whether its severance let anyone accelerate vesting. Nothing on record settles what happens to a particular grant, so your own paperwork is what decides it. Line up the grant terms, the vest dates and your final employment date before you sign anything.
What to do after being laid off from Amazon
- File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Amazon's biggest hubs: Washington, Virginia, New York. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
- Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Amazon's hub states run: Washington, Virginia, New York, and every other state is here.
- Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
- Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
- Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.
Amazon layoff and severance questions
What's Amazon's 90 day transfer window?
In the October 2025 and January 2026 rounds Amazon offered most US-based employees 90 days to look for another role inside the company. Pay and benefits ran through that window, and severance applied to people who didn't find an internal role or chose not to look. The August 2026 Washington notice carried the same 90 days with internal transfers available.
How many weeks of severance has Amazon paid?
No week count appears in what Amazon has published. Reporting on the January 2023 round described several weeks scaled to length of service, beginning after a 60-day paid period when US retail staff stayed on the payroll without working. Numbers beyond that circulate in unverified employee posts, including a 2023 account of a week per six months of service with a four-week minimum.
Do RSUs vest during Amazon's notice or transfer window?
The reporting on record doesn't settle it. January 2023 coverage couldn't establish whether Amazon's severance let anyone accelerate vesting, and nothing in the record says what happens to a particular grant scheduled inside a paid window. What those windows do is keep someone employed while they run. Compare your grant terms, your vest dates and your final employment date, and treat the grant agreement as the thing that decides it.
What's in Amazon's severance package?
Amazon's announcements name severance pay, outplacement services, and health insurance benefits as applicable, with the internal search window coming first. They attach no weeks and no amounts to any of it. The one round with a published structure is January 2023, where reporting described a paid notice period followed by weeks scaled to service.
Do Amazon warehouse workers get severance?
Nothing in the 2026 warehouse record settles it. The Port St. Lucie notice covering 494 jobs listed separations from September 17 to December 17, 2026, and Amazon had said affected staff might be eligible for transfers to nearby sites with openings, without detailing a package for that notice. The 2023 terms on record covered retail employees rather than fulfillment centers.
How much has Amazon spent on severance?
Amazon recorded approximately $2.7 billion of estimated severance costs for 2025, primarily related to planned role eliminations, with $1.8 billion in the third quarter and $730 million in the fourth. Those are company-wide accounting estimates covering every role eliminated that year, so they say nothing about an individual package.
What happens to my stock if I'm laid off from Amazon?
Amazon pay has historically leaned heavily on stock, and reporting on the January 2023 round couldn't establish whether its severance let anyone accelerate vesting. Nothing on record settles what happens to a particular grant, so your own paperwork is what decides it. Line up the grant terms, the vest dates and your final employment date before you sign anything.
Where do I file for unemployment after being laid off from Amazon?
In the state where you worked, not where the company is headquartered. Amazon's biggest U.S. hubs are Washington, Virginia, New York. Severance usually doesn't block you from filing, and benefits run from your filing date, so file the same week.
Is it OK to file for unemployment after a layoff at Amazon?
Yes. Unemployment insurance is funded by payroll taxes employers pay on wages, the claim never appears on credit reports or background checks, and future employers cannot see it. If the hesitation itself is the obstacle, whether filing is OK has its own article.
What happens to my health insurance after a layoff at Amazon?
Your plan sets the end date rather than the law, so the separation packet is where that date actually lives, and it is often the last day of the month rather than your last day of work. After coverage ends, COBRA lets you keep the identical plan by paying the whole premium yourself, up to 102 percent of what the plan really costs, which lands as several times the payroll deduction you were used to. You get 60 days to elect, counted from the later of coverage ending or the election notice arriving, and electing reaches the coverage back to the day the old plan stopped so no gap exists. How continuation coverage works walks the timing, and whether to take it rather than a marketplace plan is a separate decision.
Should I sign the severance agreement right away?
First pin down how much review time you actually have. If you're 40 or older, federal law gives you 21 days to consider an agreement that waives age claims, 45 in a group layoff, and a waiver signed under a shorter deadline can be invalid. If you're under 40, no federal window applies and the deadline in your packet may be real, so confirm it in writing and ask for more time if you need it. Use whatever window you have to read the release terms, especially non-disparagement and no-lawsuit clauses, and don't stall past a real deadline, because offers can be withdrawn.
Can I collect unemployment if I got severance from Amazon?
Usually yes, though some states delay benefits until severance pay periods end, and lump sums are treated differently than salary continuation. Check your state's rules on our state benefit pages, and file immediately either way so your claim date is locked in.