Vimeo is in the process of laying off some of its global staff after being acquired last year by Bending Spoons for $1.38B.

Amazon is preparing for another round of corporate job cuts next week, according to a report from Reuters on Thursday. Bloomberg also reported that layoffs could begin next week. We reached out to Amazon for comment.

Amazon laid off about 14,000 workers globally in October. The company indicated that more layoffs could occur in 2026 while it would continue to hire in key strategic areas.

Reuters reported that the latest cuts will be “roughly the same as last year.” The overall number of cuts could be the largest in Amazon’s history, exceeding the 27,000 positions that the company eliminated in 2023 across multiple rounds of layoffs.

In a memo to employees sent in October, Amazon human resources chief Beth Galetti wrote that the company was “shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”

She added: “This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before.”

There was speculation that the cuts were tied to automation or AI-related restructuring. Amazon and other tech giants including Microsoft have trimmed headcount while investing heavily in AI infrastructure. And software development engineers made up the largest group of employees affected by the layoffs in Washington state last year, amid the rise of AI coding tools.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also told employees in June that he expected Amazon’s total corporate workforce to shrink over time due to efficiency gains from AI.

But on the company’s earnings call with analysts, two days after the layoff announcement in October, Jassy said the cuts weren’t triggered by financial strain or artificial intelligence replacing workers. Instead, he framed it as a push to stay nimble, and said Amazon’s rapid growth over the past decade led to extra layers of management that slowed decision-making.

Jassy, who succeeded founder Jeff Bezos as CEO in mid-2021, has pushed to reduce management layers and eliminate bureaucracy inside the company. Amazon’s corporate headcount tripled between 2017 and 2022, according to The Information, before the company adopted a more cautious hiring approach.

Amazon’s corporate workforce numbered around 350,000 people in early 2023, the last time the company provided a public number. At that scale, the reduction of 30,000 represents about 8.5% of Amazon’s corporate workforce. However, the number is a much smaller fraction of its overall workforce of 1.57 million people, which includes workers in its warehouses.

The company employs around 50,000 corporate workers in the Seattle region, its primary headquarters. There were 2,303 corporate employees in Washington state that were laid off last year in October.

Amazon reports its latest quarterly earnings on Feb. 5. The company’s stock underperformed relative to the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants last year. Some analysts predict that Amazon’s cloud unit will help boost the stock as AI demand rises.

Submit news tips to GeekWire here, or to tips@geekwire.com.

Seattle-based Code.org laid off 18 employees, or about 14% of its staff, the nonprofit confirmed to GeekWire on Wednesday.

Following the cuts, Code.org’s staff now numbers 107. 

“Code.org has made the difficult decision to part ways with 18 colleagues as part of efforts to ensure our long-term sustainability,” the organization said in an emailed statement. “Their contributions helped millions of educators and students around the world, and we are grateful for their efforts.”

Code.org was launched in 2013 by brothers Hadi and Ali Partovi with a mission to expand computer science education to K-12 students. Backed by nearly $60 million in funding from the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others, Code.org counts 102 million students and 3 million teachers on its platform today, with 232 million projects created by students around the world.

CEO Hadi Partovi is a former Microsoft manager and was an early investor in companies including Facebook, DropBox, Airbnb and Uber.

“Our mission remains unchanged,” the organization said in its statement. “We will continue our Hour of AI campaign, along with our work to reform policies and new curriculum supporting CS+AI education in classrooms.”

Previously:

• ‘We are all kids in the age of AI’: Trevor Noah teaches 5th graders — and learns a few things himself
• Code.org CEO rips NY Times for stoking ‘populist fears’ over computer science jobs and AI

New layoffs at Meta will impact 331 workers in the Seattle area and Washington state, according to a filing from the state Employment Security Department.

The company is cutting employees at four facilities located in Seattle and on the Eastside, as well as approximately 97 employees who work remotely in Washington. The layoffs are part of broader reductions in the company’s Reality Labs division, first announced last week, that impacted 1,500 jobs companywide.

The heaviest hit facility is the Reality Labs office in Redmond, followed by the Spring District office in Bellevue, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing.

Meta’s Horizon OS software engineering team, working out of a Meta office on Dexter Avenue North in Seattle, was the hardest hit single group with 20 jobs cut. Horizon OS is the extended reality operating system developed to power Meta Quest virtual reality and mixed reality headsets.

Layoffs are expected to take effect on March 20.

With about 15,000 employees, Reality Labs currently represents about 19% of Meta’s total global workforce of roughly 78,000.

The company employs thousands of people across multiple offices in the Seattle region, one of its largest engineering hubs outside Menlo Park, Calif. Last October, the Facebook parent laid off more than 100 employees in Washington state as part of a broader round of cuts within its artificial intelligence division.

The Reality Labs cuts come at a time when the company is reportedly shifting priorities away from the metaverse to build next-generation artificial intelligence.

A series of layoffs across Meta’s virtual reality division has affected Bellevue, Wash.-based studio Camouflaj (Republique, Batman: Arkham Shadow).

This week opened with reports that Meta had shuttered several game developers in its studio network, including Twisted Pixel (Marvel’s Deadpool VR) and Armature (Resident Evil 4 VR), both of which were headquartered in Texas.

Rumors subsequently entered circulation on Wednesday that the same wave of layoffs had affected Camouflaj. Several outlets, including Aftermath and The Verge, confirmed Thursday that while Camouflaj is still in operation, it’s been reduced to a “handful of employees.” The studio has around 30 employees, according to LinkedIn data.

In addition, a planned sequel to 2024’s Batman: Arkham Shadow has been cancelled, and the project’s developer Sanzaru has been shut down.

GeekWire has reached out to Meta and Camouflaj for further comment.

This wave of dismissals is reportedly a downstream effect from a 10% headcount reduction at Meta’s Reality Labs division. This follows a decision to shift Meta’s efforts away from VR and the Metaverse and towards AI research and wearables.

Camouflaj began as an independent studio led by Microsoft veteran Ryan Payton, which made headlines in 2012 for using crowdfunding to start work on its debut project. Republique, an episodic stealth game set in a fictional totalitarian state, was initially an exclusive for iOS devices. It was later released for PC, Mac, Android, and PlayStation 4.

Camouflaj later retooled Republique as a virtual reality game, which marked a shift by the company towards developing VR projects. Its next game, made with Sony Interactive Entertainment and Marvel Studios, was 2020’s Iron Man VR for PlayStation and Meta Quest. Camouflaj was then acquired by Oculus in 2022.

Its latest game, Arkham Shadow, is an official entry in the long-running “Arkham series” of Batman video games. Set early in Batman’s crime-fighting career, before many of his trademark villains had assumed their costumed identities, Shadow pits a young Batman against a villain known as the Rat King.

It’s worth noting that while Meta was not the only significant player in the virtual reality sector, it did command a large part of the overall market due to its standalone headsets. If Meta plans to back out of VR to any further degree, it could potentially pose an existential threat to the format. Valve’s recent announcement of a new VR headset does offer some hope to VR fans, however.

The Gates Foundation on Wednesday unveiled a record $9 billion operating budget for 2026 — which includes a plan to reduce its workforce by up to 500 positions over the next five years, or about a fifth of its current headcount.

The foundation’s board approved a cap on operating expenses of no more than $1.25 billion annually — roughly 14% of its total budget — prompting the cuts and other cost controls to align internal spending with that new limit.

The Seattle-based foundation said headcount targets and timelines will be adjusted year by year, and that it will continue to hire selectively for roles deemed critical to advancing its mission.

The decision comes after the foundation announced last year that it would shut down by 2045.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who helped launch the Gates Foundation in 2000, announced plans in May to give away $200 billion — including nearly all of his wealth — over the next two decades through the foundation.

The philanthropy is the world’s largest and has already disbursed $100 billion since its founding, helping save millions of lives with its focus on global health and other social initiatives.

“The foundation’s 2045 closure deadline gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make transformative progress, but doing so requires us to focus relentlessly on the people we serve and the outcomes we want to deliver,” Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, said in a statement. “Ensuring as much of every dollar as possible flows toward impact is critical to achieving our ambitious goals to save and improve millions more lives over the next 20 years.”

The foundation had already begun ramping up its grant making, issuing $8.75 billion in 2025, and previously committed to distribute $9 billion this year. It has a $77 billion endowment.

This year the foundation will increase spending in priority areas, including maternal health, polio eradication, U.S. education, and vaccine development.

The increase in funding commitments comes amid Trump administration cuts to global foreign assistance, its shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and broader reductions in funding for health and scientific research.

In his annual letter released last week, Gates wrote that “the thing I am most upset about” is that the number of deaths of children under 5 years old increased in 2025 for the first time this century, which he traced to cuts in aid from rich countries.

“The next five years will be difficult as we try to get back on track and work to scale up new lifesaving tools,” he wrote. “Yet I remain optimistic about the long-term future. As hard as last year was, I don’t believe we will slide back into the Dark Ages. I believe that, within the next decade, we will not only get the world back on track but enter a new era of unprecedented progress.”

The publication noted that Reality Labs had roughly 15,000 employees, and the job cuts could impact over 1,000 people.

Meta’s VR gaming push is shrinking, and you’ll feel it. Reality Labs layoffs and the closure of the studios behind Resident Evil 4 and Deadpool point to fewer big exclusives for Quest owners.

The post Meta’s VR gaming push is shrinking, and you’ll feel it appeared first on Digital Trends.

IgniteTech CEO Eric Vaughan says AI drove 2023 layoffs that cut staff by 80%, arguing the shift enabled faster product development and higher profitability.

The post No Regrets: Why This CEO Still Stands by Cutting 80% of His Workforce appeared first on TechRepublic.

IgniteTech CEO Eric Vaughan says AI drove 2023 layoffs that cut staff by 80%, arguing the shift enabled faster product development and higher profitability.

The post No Regrets: Why This CEO Still Stands by Cutting 80% of His Workforce appeared first on TechRepublic.

Meta is planning to lay off around 10% of the employees in its Reality Labs division, The New York Times reported Monday.

The division — which employs roughly 15,000 people — has a strong presence in the Seattle area and is responsible for the company’s “metaverse” technologies that work in conjunction with augmented and virtual reality, including for products such as VR headsets and a VR-based social network.

Update: The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that 1,500 employees were let go.

The Times cited people with knowledge of the layoff discussions, which the newspaper said come at a time when the company is shifting priorities to build next-generation artificial intelligence.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment when reached by GeekWire.

Business Insider reported that Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, the head of Reality Labs, called an all-hands meeting for Wednesday. Sources told BI that employees were strongly encouraged to attend in person.

Reality Labs currently represents about 19% of Meta’s total global workforce of roughly 78,000.

Meta employs thousands of people across multiple offices in the Seattle region, one of its largest engineering hubs outside Menlo Park, Calif. Last October, the company laid off more than 100 employees in Washington state as part of a broader round of cuts within its artificial intelligence division.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited a Reality Labs facility in Redmond in 2022 to demonstrate how wearables such as wristbands can control devices with small muscle movements.

The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries cited Meta in November 2022 for alleged safety violations in a cleanroom at Meta’s “Matrix” facility in Redmond. The specially designed space was engineered to filter pollutants such as dust, airborne microbes, and aerosol particles. In January 2024 the state ordered the room shut down.

A few thoughts on the year about to close.

Driving on the Donald J. Trump George Washington Memorial Parkway the other day, I was impressed by the progress in the reconstruction of this vital artery. The contractors and the Trump National Park Service planned well, and the road has remained reasonably passable over the past couple of years. Now the trip to the Donald J. Trump John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has gotten easier. Ditto for trips to the Donald J. Trump Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

I’ve always liked where the Parkway runs close to the Trump Potomac River. You can see across to Trump Washington Monument and the Trump Tidal Basin. But, stately as the nation’s capital appears, change and lots of chaos have marked the calendar year about to end.

But seriously, looking at the D.C. skyline, one wonders about the real state of the republic.

If you search “trump timeline,” you’ll find timelines from many interest groups, most of whom feel aggrieved by the second Trump administration. The release of the Epstein files, “undermining elections,” deportation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, reversing energy policies, legal tangling with Harvard University, military activity against Venezuela — Trump activities make for compelling observation. A lot of this is press-induced, and the Trump style eggs it on. Yet norms have stretched.

I would add that only some of what Trump has done is completely original. But he does things, let’s say, in highly original ways. The result is we have two branches of government in contention with one another. The third branch, and the one detailed first in the Constitution, has rendered itself into an observant chorus with no say over the score.

For federal employees, 2025 will rank as the oddest year many have ever endured. It started with the DOGE swarms, slashing their way to and fro. Then came the deferred resignation program and layoffs. Mass return to the office. Cancellation of collective bargaining agreements at several agencies. Difficulties in settling retirement benefits.

So much news, it almost made me regret retiring. The workforce reductions and changes of conditions may all fall within an administration’s discretionary powers. But rough treatment of persons falls outside of decency. Let’s hope it stops in 2026. I remember a time when a new president of a company I worked for brought in a gaggle of MBAs to do cost cutting. The attitudes felt worse than the cuts, and the company eventually disappeared anyhow.

One thing 2025 has taught me: Keep things in perspective. The worst job situations I remember? I can chuckle about them now. That’s what time does. I once secretly flew to New Jersey and back for a job interview — all in a really extended lunch hour. To be honest, the new job seemed dull, and I never got the offer. Luckily, the situation I was seeking to leave changed overnight for the better, the way better. While you are going through cavalier and high-handed treatment, it’s no fun.

And what about the nation you serve? The absence of any serious debate about what the Government Accountability Office politely calls fiscal unsustainability strikes me as the worst quality in Congress and executive branch policy makers.

It’s not as if no one knows that next year alone the federal deficit will add $2 trillion to the $30 trillion national debt. That Social Security outlays increasingly surpass revenues for as far as the eye can see. That healthcare programs exceed the $3 trillion mark. That interest payments on public debt have passed the $1 trillion mark. The absolute numbers are big, and they are worsening when expressed as a percentage of the nation’s economic output.

So my wish for the nation in the year ahead is fact-facing and rationality, especially on the part of so-called lawmakers.

Beyond thinking of any possible policy and programmatic fixes, the government must resolve to become a better steward of the money it does print and spend.

I’m thinking of Minnesota. The federal prosecutor on the Minnesota Medicare fraud scheme described it as “staggering industrial-scale fraud.” As Trump would say, and McDonald’s used to say, billions and billions. The theft — and it is simple, naked theft — is both heartbreaking and maddening. At an estimated $9 billion, it makes the worst armed robbery seem like child’s play. One almost thinks the perpetrators deserve hanging, such is the extent and callous shrewdness of the crimes. But it also evidences a near total breakdown in program planning, execution and oversight — mainly at the state level, but there’s federal responsibility too. Did anyone notice or care that this was going on?

The staff cuts and turmoil have affected constituent service. People I speak to seem amusedly resigned to how places like the IRS, Social Security and the Postal Service operate. Line employees mostly want to serve effectively, but what kind of backing do they get?

The week before Christmas, I stopped in at my local Postal Service office. It’s busy, a beehive of a facility. I recently became president of a very small non-profit foundation, and we needed to move the P.O. box from Virginia to Maryland so I could easily get the incoming donation checks.

On a Thursday morning, only one employee manned the four-bay counter. Efficiently as she worked, still the line kept stretching to nine, then a dozen, people deep. For a reason I only dimly comprehended, I couldn’t complete the transfer because of a mismatch in phone numbers. I straightened it out a couple of days later, when I had the right information. Two clerks were then on duty, and they kept the lines short.

The post My wish for 2026: Rationality in the Trump era first appeared on Federal News Network.

© AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The past year may go down as one of the most consequential in technology history, in both the Seattle tech community and the world. But in some ways, it’s not without precedent.

As we sat down to reflect on the past year, we rewound all the way back to January — when, as part of a larger discussion with Bill Gates, we asked the Microsoft co-founder to compare the early days of the PC with these early years of AI.

Gates reflected on the PC era as a moment of computing becoming free, effectively.

“Now what’s happening is intelligence is becoming free,” he said, “and that’s even more profound than computing becoming free.”

As we looked through GeekWire’s top stories of the year, almost every one felt like a subplot to that larger narrative. On this special year-end episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we reviewed the articles that resonated most with readers, and compared notes to make sense of it all.

Listen below, and continue reading for episode notes and links.

Enigma of success: ‘Brutal reality’ of tech cycles

• Best of times, worst of times: Massive AI infrastructure spending alongside widespread layoffs.
• Satya Nadella on the Stargate announcement: “I’m good for my $80 billion.“
• The unexpected way AI is affecting jobs — not by replacing workers directly, but by pressuring companies to cut costs as they pour money into infrastructure.
• MIT study: 95% of projects using generative AI have failed or produced no return.
• Worker stress: Mandates to use AI, but no playbook on how.
• One tech veteran’s take: “The enigma of success is a polite way of describing the brutal reality of tech cycles. … The challenge, and opportunity for leadership, is whether the bets actually compound into something durable, or just become another slide deck for next year’s reorg.”
• Bill Radke on KUOW: “The tech industry had quite a year. Amazon ordered their workers back to the office. You must come back to the office. Are you here? Good. You’re laid off. Not all of you. Just the humans.“

A pivotal year for Amazon

• Andy Jassy’s explanation: Not financially driven, not even really AI driven — it’s culture.
• After rapid growth, Amazon trying to get back to operating like “the world’s largest startup.”
• The new motto seems to be: Get small and nimble, faster.
• Can Amazon find that next pillar of business, as Jeff Bezos used to say?

Coding is dead, computer science is not

• Most popular story of the year: Coding is dead: UW computer science program rethinks curriculum for the AI era.
• Magdalena Balazinska, director of the Paul G. Allen School: “Coding, or the translation of a precise design into software instructions, is dead. AI can do that. We have never graduated coders. We have always graduated software engineers.”
• The issue was explored by the New York Times in its Daily podcast on Code.org and the shifting landscape for coding education. See the response from Hadi Partovi of Code.org.

Seattle’s future as a tech hub

• Wall Street Journal report: Seattle, Tech Boomtown, Grapples With a Future of Fewer Tech Jobs
• One source quoted: “Between 2012 and 2022 it was a great period … until everything flipped.”
• GeekWire coverage: Is Seattle’s tech scene in trouble? WSJ report highlights concerning trends — with a potential opening for startups
• But: Atlas Van Lines data shows Washington state still among top 10 destinations for movers.
• The strengths remain: Anchor tenants, investors, startups, smart people, UW, healthcare infrastructure, etc.
• We’re seeing AI expand from individual productivity to enterprise efficiency — an area where the Seattle region has historically excelled.

Sense of place: More important for some, less for others

• Amazon brings employees back five days a week; Microsoft announces three days starting in 2026.
• Rebooting Redmond: The conclusion of our Microsoft 50th anniversary series explored the new campus and what it signals.
• Yet many startups are more distributed and diffuse than ever — sometimes it’s hard to even pin down where their headquarters are.
• Statsig, entirely in-office in Bellevue, acquired by OpenAI for $1.1 billion.
• The perennial question: Why don’t more of these companies become Seattle’s next tech giant?

M&A and IPOs: Base hits, not home runs

• Didn’t see as much deal activity as some predicted for 2025.
• GeekWire deals list reflects smaller acquisitions, not blockbusters.
• One tech IPO from Washington state: Kestra Medical Technologies, $202 million in March.
• Complex alchemy of interest rates, regulation, and market conditions.

AI becomes real

• Brad Smith at Microsoft’s annual meeting: Asked Copilot’s researcher agent to produce a report on an issue from seven or eight years ago. Fifteen minutes later: 25-page report with 100 citations.
• What’s happening now: the shift from individual productivity to team productivity, from people using AI to organizations figuring it out.
• As companies implement AI agents, we move from desktop/individual applications to true enterprise services, playing to Seattle’s strengths.

Quote of the Year

“We look forward to joining Matt on his private island next year.” — Kiana Ehsani, CEO of Vercept, after her co-founder Matt Deitke left to join Meta for a reported hundreds of millions of dollars.

Stickler of the Year

Proud Seattleite and grammarian Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!, correcting a contestant: “Sorry, Dan, we are sticklers in Seattle. It’s Pike Place — no s.”

Feel-Good Moment of the Year

Ambika Singh, CEO and founder of Armoire, accepting the Workplace of the Year award at the GeekWire Awards: “It is not a surprise to any of you that we are losing community outside of these walls in this country. But here, it feels alive and well.”

Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Audio editing by Curt Milton

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton It’s been a tough year for federal employees. There’s been lot of uncertainty about jobs and missions. We’ve had shutdown. They got paid, they didn’t get paid. What kind of a toll does that accumulation have on mental health?

Roz Beroza You know, it may look very differently for every person, but generally, it has been a traumatic year, which trauma is very specific. It has a long shelf life, but initially, it feels like you’ve been run over by a truck. You’re disoriented. You could be in freeze. This is not just a financial loss, it’s a multi-faceted loss, almost as though a tsunami took everything and internally you lose your identity, you lose your future as you always assumed it would be. The toll for this is huge.

Terry Gerton How does it manifest itself for folks on a day-to-day basis?

Roz Beroza As I said, Terry, It’s really different for people. Some people don’t feel it. They just start doing what they need to do. Other people cannot get out of bed. Many people feel panicky. We saw that in the Washington Post article in March. There was an article about the effects on the federal employees, and they talked about suicide in that report.

Terry Gerton So we’re taking all of that, and now we’re coming into a holiday period, which is always stressful in some way, shape or form. But for folks who’ve lived through these last nine or 10 months, and now maybe coming into the holidays with financial uncertainty, job uncertainty, how does that compound the situation?

Roz Beroza It compounds it a great deal because you come into this time of year when you had particular traditions that might have not felt like a financial cost, but this year cannot be — you can’t do the same things you’ve always done. It’s very painful. You can’t buy your kids everything you wanted to buy them. It’s a reminder, not just your thinking brain, but your whole nervous system. So it takes a lot of energy and people feel very, can feel very exhausted.

Terry Gerton Well tell us about therapy for feds and why you launched this initiative for former federal employees.

Roz Beroza Well, I launched it around May of last year, and, you know, I grew up around Washington, D.C., the government, everybody worked for the government, everybody’s parents worked for the government. That’s our industry here. And it felt like this can’t be happening. The numbers that were predicted, but they started to happen, these huge, massive layoffs. And honestly, Terry, it was an effort to deal with my own despair. I needed to do something, and I looked for a while to see, is there another organization who’s doing something that’s really focused on the mental health of these government employees? And nothing was there. So I just started posting on websites.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Roz Beroza. She’s the founder of Therapy4Feds. Roz, tell us about the programs that you offer and how it makes mental health therapy accessible, maybe for people who’ve lost their jobs or who might be struggling financially.

Roz Beroza Therapy4Feds is sort of like a clearinghouse where somebody who has lost their job because of this administration’s policies, so that’s in 2025, can seek help from a licensed mental health therapist at either no cost or maximum cost of $35 per hour. [There are] Five sessions and at the end of those five sessions they can either continue, they can use their insurance if they have it, it’s up to the therapist and the person that is seeking the service. We also have partnered with an organization called Give an Hour, which also has been in existence since after 9-11. And so they’re longstanding, and their mission is to give affordable, well-known, free health care to those in the military, people who have been victims of fraud, financial fraud, and people with rare illnesses. So we are working together to promote, and also if any of our people can draw from their pool of therapists, we’re using the same pool.

Terry Gerton Do you find with the former federal employees any resistance to seek mental health therapy?

Roz Beroza You know, I don’t really have a handle on that. I have a handle on the huge numbers that want it, that are at some time during this year, like after the CDC in Georgia, I received huge numbers of people who need it and they would email me about being desperate to get some help, and at that time, I had two therapists in Georgia. You have to have somebody who is licensed in your state. So I have a huge effort out to get licensed therapists to join our network.

Terry Gerton Tell us about how therapists who are interested can partner with you.

Roz Beroza Well, they can go to my site, which is Therapy4Feds.org and they can register on the site, and it’s very quick to register. You have to, as I say, be licensed, have malpractice insurance. And what happens then is those who are seeking therapy go to their state and they can choose somebody who’s licensed in their state.

Terry Gerton And for someone who’s listening who might feel overwhelmed themselves right now, what’s the first step they can take to get help? Same.

Roz Beroza Same. Go to Therapy4feds.org and there’s a section there that says “seeking a therapist.”

The post Therapy4Feds offers a lifeline for former federal employees facing tough times first appeared on Federal News Network.

© Getty Images/fizkes

Amazon filed a new notice with Washington state Monday morning signaling that it’s cutting 84 jobs, but the individual separations are part of the regular course of business, unrelated to the 14,000 corporate layoffs it announced globally in October.

The company said each of its businesses regularly reviews its organizational structure and may make adjustments as a result. It’s a routine process, the company said, not tied to broader workforce actions.

The notice stems from a new state law that requires employers to disclose all terminations occurring within 90 days of a prior notice under the state’s new “mini” version of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act.

“We’ve informed a relatively small number of employees that their roles will be eliminated as the result of individual business decisions,” said Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser. “We don’t make decisions like this lightly,” he added, noting that the company is providing affected employees with 90 days of full pay and benefits, transitional health coverage, and job placement services.

According to the filing, the separations are scheduled to occur between Feb. 2 and Feb. 23, 2026, across more than 30 Seattle and Bellevue office locations, plus six remote workers based in Washington. They include software development engineers, program managers, recruiters, HR specialists, and UX designers, ranging from entry-level to directors and principals.

Amazon noted in the filing that employees were notified starting in early November and received at least 89 days’ advance notice, exceeding the 60-day minimum required under the law. Those who find internal transfers before their separation date won’t be laid off.

Separately, the company said in October that it was cutting 14,000 corporate jobs globally as part of CEO Andy Jassy’s push to reduce bureaucracy and operate more efficiently. That earlier round included more than 2,300 layoffs in Washington state, according to a filing at the time.

Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti signaled additional cuts could continue into 2026. Reuters has reported the total could ultimately reach 30,000 — which would surpass the 27,000 positions eliminated in 2023 and mark the largest overall layoff in company history.