“We’re always interested in connecting with talented people — both new candidates and former Amazonians — for open roles,” Silva said. “Rehiring former employees is a normal, longstanding part of how we recruit, and our rehire and interview practices are consistent across the company.”
One effort reported by Business Insider appears to be aimed specifically at former artificial intelligence and machine-learning employees. Recruiters working with an organization led by AWS vice president Swami Sivasubramanian have been reaching out under what one email called “Swami’s Boomerang Reengagement Initiative,” encouraging former workers to discuss potential new roles at the company.
Amazon, however, pushed back on the idea that the outreach represents a new AI-specific hiring strategy.
Big Tech’s boomerang hiring trend
The outreach comes after a year of major job cuts at Amazon, which has eliminated more than 30,000 positions across multiple rounds of layoffs. Yet even as the company trims parts of its workforce, it’s turning to former employees for roles it still considers critical, particularly as competition for AI talent intensifies across Google, Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic.
Amazon isn’t alone in cutting broadly while still hiring selectively. Meta has laid off roughly 8,000 employees earlier this year, Microsoft recently eliminated another 4,800 roles and Oracle has cut about 21,000 positions over the past year. At the same time, tech companies are continuing to compete for workers in areas they still see as critical, sometimes by turning back to former employees who already know the business.
Salesforce, for example, encouraged former employees to return in 2023 just months after eliminating roughly 8,000 jobs. Google has also increasingly turned to former employees in the race for AI talent. In 2025, about 20% of the software engineers it hired to work on AI were boomerang employees, according to CNBC.
Research from workforce analytics firm Visier found companies eventually rehire about 5.3% of workers they’ve laid off. And while not all rehiring involves former employees, workforce decisions can reverse quickly. Research from Robert Half found that three in 10 U.S. hiring managers who eliminated positions after implementing AI later had to rehire people for the same or similar roles.
Amazon’s return-to-office mandate isn’t going anywhere
Former employees who are considering a return to Amazon shouldn’t expect the company to loosen its in-office requirements. Amazon’s corporate employees largely worked remotely during the pandemic before moving to a hybrid schedule in 2023. Then, on Jan. 2, 2025, the company began requiring corporate employees to work from the office five days a week.
