Amazon is contacting former employees, including some it laid off, about AI and cloud vacancies after cutting more than 30,000 positions over the past year, Quartz reported on 23 September.
Key points
- An Amazon AI agent recruiter approached former staff with AI and machine learning experience under a named boomerang initiative.
- Amazon says rehiring former employees is an established practice across the company, driven by open positions.
- A separate recruiter offered one former employee an expedited interview process leading to an offer.
- Amazon announced a round of approximately 16,000 job cuts earlier in 2026.
Sivasubramanian’s team approaches former AI staff
An August message from a recruiter in Amazon’s AI agent organisation sought former employees with AI and machine learning experience for open jobs. The recruiter called the outreach “Swami’s Boomerang Reengagement Initiative”. AWS vice-president Swami Sivasubramanian oversees the organisation.
Another recruiter, working in AWS Finance, offered a former employee an expedited interview process leading to an offer. That recruiter also asked whether Amazon’s return-to-office requirements had influenced the employee’s decision to leave. The approaches described in the recruiter emails concerned former staff rather than a general hiring campaign.
Amazon spokesperson Haley Silva said former-employee hiring was already established throughout Amazon, rather than a newly introduced programme confined to AI and cloud jobs, Quartz reported. She said people previously laid off could be considered for openings. According to Silva, available headcount drives the outreach, not an effort to bring back employees who left because of the attendance policy.
Silva said Amazon’s workplace attendance requirements had not changed. The recruiter’s question about why one employee left therefore sits alongside the company’s account of how it fills vacancies, rather than a change to the terms on which staff would return.
Amazon’s layoffs and rehire route
Amazon’s job cuts have taken place in several waves over the past year. One company-wide round announced earlier in 2026 affected approximately 16,000 employees. The company also eliminated positions in its artificial general intelligence unit that year, saying it was concentrating on its most important initiatives.
For most US-based employees affected by the approximately 16,000-position round, Amazon offered 90 days to seek another job internally, Benzinga reported. Employees who did not secure one were to receive severance pay, outplacement assistance and health insurance benefits. That internal search period concerned employees facing job cuts; the recruiter emails concerned people who had already left.
Amazon had previously raised the possibility of bringing back people who lost their jobs. In 2023, AWS human resources vice-president Ian Wilson told employees that many laid-off workers were eligible for rehire and proposed looking at ways to contact former staff who wanted to return.
Amazon’s hiring FAQ says former employees can reapply and that their employment records inform rehire eligibility, Techloy reported. The current approaches concern open roles, according to Silva’s account, and include people with experience in fields where the recruiters are seeking candidates.
ADP records 35% returning US hires
Amazon’s five-day office requirement and restrictions on office locations made AI positions harder to fill in 2025, according to Business Insider reporting described by Quartz. Some candidates chose jobs elsewhere that paid less but allowed more remote work. Silva said the current former-employee outreach was not designed to reverse departures over that policy.
Returning employees accounted for 35% of US new hires in March 2025, compared with 31% a year earlier, according to ADP payroll data cited by Quartz. In the technology sector, returning workers made up nearly two-thirds of new hires over that period.
ADP said returning workers tend to bring scarce skills and typically become productive more quickly than external hires. Amazon’s recruiters are approaching former staff with AI and machine learning experience while the company continues to fill vacancies in those areas.
