Layoffs Tracker: Kroger, Pfizer, Netflix and Amazon Hit This Week - Newsweek

Newsweek published a layoffs roundup this week covering workforce reductions at Kroger, Pfizer, Netflix and Amazon. According to the article, Kroger's planned reductions will affect more than a third of its corporate workforce. The roundup states that the cuts come as the grocer expands its use of AI.

The article, headlined "Layoffs Tracker: Kroger, Pfizer, Netflix and Amazon Hit This Week," presents the four companies together in a tracker format. Beyond Kroger's corporate reductions and its expanded use of AI, the excerpt does not specify the number of roles affected at Pfizer, Netflix or Amazon. It quotes an instructor, who said AI "is a great scapegoat for companies, in an effort to get more work out of fewer people while raking in higher profits."

The Kroger figures concern corporate staff rather than store-level employees, per the article's description of the reductions as affecting its corporate workforce. The roundup places the AI expansion and the job cuts in adjacent passages without attributing the reductions to the technology. The quoted instructor's remark offers a contrasting interpretation, describing AI as a justification used by companies seeking more output from fewer employees alongside higher profits.