Pinterest laying off 15% of workforce in push toward AI roles and teams

Amazon.com Inc. announced plans to terminate about 16,000 corporate employees, ratcheting up efforts to streamline bureaucracy amid rising competition over artificial intelligence.

The company will offer US-based employees 90 days to search for a new role internally, as well as severance and other transition support, Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said Wednesday in a blog post.

“We’ve been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” Galetti said.

The job cuts arrived a few months after the company announced it was eliminating 14,000 roles. Combined, the total number of terminations echoes the rolling layoffs Amazon instituted in late 2022 and early 2023 that ultimately snared about 27,000 people.

Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy has repeatedly said he’s determined to cut management layers and ease bureaucracy that began to concern executives after a pandemic-era hiring binge. Last year, he also warned employees that AI would shrink the workforce as Amazon automates more of its operations.

While the company employed a total of about 1.57 million people as of Sept. 30, most of them work in warehouses. The corporate workforce comprises about 350,000 personnel, meaning the latest cuts represent about 4.6% of that headcount.

Pinterest said Tuesday it plans to lay off less than 15% of its workforce and cut back on office space as the company embraces artificial intelligence.

In a securities filing, Pinterest said it expects the cuts to be complete by the end of its third quarter in late September. Shares of Pinterest slid more than 9%.

The social media company said it’s “reallocating resources” to AI-focused teams and prioritizing “AI-powered products and capabilities.” It said it’s also reshaping its sales and marketing strategy.

The company said it expects to record pre-tax restructuring charges of about $35 million to $45 million.

Pinterest had more than 4,500 employees globally as of last April, according to its most recent proxy filing.

Pinterest has looked to inject AI throughout its platform to show more personalized and relevant content to users. The company last October released a “Pinterest Assistant” shopping tool.

At the same time, Pinterest has rolled out more automated advertising tools for marketers as it faces increasing competition from TikTok, Meta’s Facebook, and Instagram.

“Our investments in AI and product innovation are paying off,” Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said in November. “We’ve become a leader in visual search and have effectively turned our platform into an AI-powered shopping assistant for 600 million customers.”

Pinterest isn’t the only company downsizing as it invests in AI. AI was cited as the reason for almost 55,000 layoffs in the U.S. last year, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Some experts have questioned whether the technology is the real source of the job reductions, saying some companies could be “AI-washing,” or blaming layoffs on the new technology to cover up cost-cutting efforts or other issues with their businesses.

UPS UPS 4.85%increase; green up pointing triangle expects to cut an additional 30,000 operational positions this year, the company said Tuesday, as it continues with its restructuring efforts.

The latest round of cuts comes as the company reported higher quarterly profit and guided for slightly higher revenue in the coming year. The shipper eliminated 48,000 positions in 2025, comprising 14,000 management positions and 34,000 jobs in operations. UPS has been working to right-size its business after reducing volumes from Amazon.com AMZN 1.42%increase; green up pointing triangle, which was once its largest customer.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes said the headcount reductions will be accomplished through a voluntary separation offering for full-time drivers, as well as attrition. He declined to estimate the breakdown of driver-buyouts versus attrition, stating it is too early to make an estimate.

“This is a tactical move, and we did something similar last year, in order to help us to right-size the position levels and the network infrastructure,” Dykes said on a call with analysts.

Shares edged 1.8% higher, to $108.93, in morning trading.

UPS said it has so far delivered about $3.5 billion in savings tied to its restructuring, which, beyond job cuts, has included the closure of more than 90 buildings and a push toward automation.

Chief Executive Carol Tomé said the company has achieved its volume-reduction target in 2025, which included reducing volumes from Amazon by about 1 million parcels a day. UPS expects to limit Amazon volumes by an additional 1 million packages a day in 2026, she added.

The company expects to record additional cost-savings this year, largely concentrated in the back half, driven by continued job cuts and the closure of at least 24 more facilities. “Plus, we plan to further deploy automation across the network,” Dykes said.

The job cuts were disclosed on UPS’s fourth-quarter earnings call, as the company posted higher profit despite a charge tied to the retirement of one of its aircraft fleets and said its restructuring efforts were starting to pay off.

The company said profit rose to $1.79 billion, or $2.10 a share, compared with $1.72 billion, or $2.01 a share, in the same quarter last year.

UPS noted the recent quarter included $238 million worth of charges, including a $137 million write-off tied to the retirement of its MD-11 aircraft fleet. The UPS cargo plane that crashed in November and killed at least 12 people was a 34-year-old MD-11 plane.

The company said it has accelerated and completed the retirement of its MD-11 fleet during the latest quarter. It plans to replace most of the fleet with newer, more efficient Boeing 767 aircraft over the coming year.

Stripping out one-time costs, such as the fleet write-off and roughly $100 million in charges tied to the company’s restructuring, earnings were $2.38 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of $2.20 a share.

Revenue slipped 3.2% to $24.48 billion, but came in ahead of the $24.01 billion that Wall Street had modeled.

Looking forward, UPS guided for revenue of approximately $89.7 billion in 2026, ahead of the $88.05 billion that analysts are expecting. The company said it is planning for capital expenditures of about $3 billion and dividend payments of around $5.4 billion, subject to board approval.

Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab swung to a fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, driven by the sale of its digital aviation services provider, as well as rising jet output and stronger deliveries.

Losses in its two biggest divisions were bigger than expected, however, and shares dropped. The company also recorded a $565 million charge on its KC-46 aerial-refueling tanker program due to higher estimated production support and supply chain costs.

The sale of Jeppesen for $10.6 billion covered operating losses in Boeing's commercial and defense divisions. At the same time, the company continued to increase output of its two most popular jetliners - the 737 MAX and 787 - and posted positive free cash flow, a metric closely watched by investors.

After years of crises, Boeing appears to be recovering, but it still has a long way to go. Commercial jet deliveries and orders have come back in recent years after dropping in 2019 and 2020. The company's financial performance is improving.

737 MAX OUTPUT REACHES 42 A MONTH

Boeing ended the year with 737 MAX production of 42 airplanes per month and is in the process of raising the 787 rate to eight a month. The company plans to raise MAX production to 47 per month this year and 787 production to 10 a month.

The planemaker earned a net profit of $8.22 billion, or $10.23 per share, for the quarter through December, compared with a loss of $3.86 billion, or $5.46 per share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, including the Jeppesen sale, Boeing earned a quarterly profit of 32 cents per share compared with expectations for a loss of 39 cents per share. Analysts had not expected Boeing's results to include the sale.

Despite the production improvements, Boeing's commercial airplane unit posted a quarterly loss of $632 million. Boeing's defense and space unit lost $507 million. In a CNBC interview on Tuesday, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said he expects the KC-46 charge to be a one-time event.

The company's shares were down about 2.5% in early trading, likely due in part to higher-than-expected losses in the two units, Deutsche Bank analyst Scott Deuschle wrote in a note.

The quarterly results included the Jeppesen sale, which was part of Boeing's services unit, to Thoma Bravo and the reacquisition of Spirit AeroSystems for $4.7 billion in stock. Boeing paid down Spirit's debt by more than $3 billion, resulting in a net gain of about $7.6 billion.

Item 1 of 2 An aerial view of a Boeing KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling tanker parked at King County International Airport-Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S, June 1, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

[1/2]An aerial view of a Boeing KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling tanker parked at King County International Airport-Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S, June 1, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Boeing's services unit posted nearly $1 billion in profit after taking out the Jeppesen sale, Jefferies aerospace investment analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu wrote in a research note.

The company did not give financial projections for 2026. On a conference call with analysts, Chief Financial Officer Jay Malave said he expects $1 billion to $3 billion in positive free cash flow this year, depending on ongoing delays on the 777X program and the smallest 737 MAX variants - the 737-7 and 737-10.

Company executives have said their goal is $10 billion annually, but they have not provided a timeline.

MOST DELIVERIES SINCE 2018

Across all jet programs, the company delivered 600 airliners last year, the most since 2018. In the intervening years, Boeing was battered by the 737 MAX scandal, the pandemic, supply chain bottlenecks, a mid-air accident that exposed systemic quality and safety problems, and labor problems.

The company expects to increase jet deliveries this year.

"With progress comes expectations, and our customers and stakeholders are going to expect more from us this year," Ortberg said in a memo to employees on Tuesday. "And we should expect more from each other."

He said the company needs to make progress on fixed-cost defense and space programs that are behind schedule and have cost Boeing billions.

The company is "seeking to better manage (delivery) delay exposure in new contracts with tighter underwriting standards," Malave said on the conference call.

The planemaker brought in $375 million in cash in the fourth quarter, but it still burned $1.9 billion in cash for the year, in part due to ongoing certification delays on the 737 MAX and 777X programs.

Boeing's fourth-quarter revenue rose 57% to $23.95 billion compared with expectations of about $22.6 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.