Amazon employs 1,576,000 people, and that still undercounts its true workforce
Amazon employed 1,576,000 full-time and part-time workers as of December 31, 2025, according to its most recent annual report. That makes it the second-largest private employer in the United States after Walmart, and it is the number almost every headline uses to answer "how many people work for Amazon."
It is also the number that hides the most. Amazon's filing states plainly that the count excludes independent contractors and temporary staff. The people who actually hand you the box, the seasonal army hired every fourth quarter, and the gig drivers running Amazon Flex routes are all working for Amazon in every practical sense, and none of them are in that 1.576 million.
- 1,576,000 direct employees — full-time and part-time, at year-end 2025 (Amazon 2025 annual report)
- ~1.1 million (about 70%) of those employees are based in the United States
- ~350,000 work in corporate and technology roles; the rest are in warehouses, fulfillment, and transportation
- 1,000,000+ robots deployed across the fulfillment network by mid-2025, nearly one per human worker
- ~390,000 delivery jobs created through the Delivery Service Partner program, staffed by contractors rather than Amazon
- 250,000 seasonal roles hired across the U.S. for the 2025 holiday season
- 1,608,000 — the all-time peak headcount, reached in 2021 during the pandemic surge
Why "how many people work for Amazon" has more than one right answer
The gap between the reported figure and the real one comes down to who counts as an Amazon worker. Amazon reports only direct employees in its 10-K. Everyone else in its labor ecosystem is employed by someone else, or classified as a contractor, even though Amazon sets the routes, the rates, and the performance targets.
That distinction is the whole story. Depending on where you draw the line, the answer ranges from roughly 1.58 million to well over 2 million.
| Who you count | What it includes | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Direct employees (10-K) | Full-time and part-time Amazon payroll | 1,576,000 |
| + Seasonal workers | Holiday temps at peak | +250,000 |
| + DSP drivers | Employed by delivery contractors, not Amazon | ~390,000 jobs created |
| + Amazon Flex | Independent gig drivers | Not disclosed |
| Robots (not people) | Machines reshaping the headcount | 1,000,000+ |
Where Amazon's people actually work
The mental image of an "Amazon employee" is usually a Seattle software engineer, but corporate and tech staff are a minority of the company. Roughly 350,000 people work in corporate and technology roles, which is only about a fifth of the total. The overwhelming majority, well over a million people, work in fulfillment centers, sortation centers, and the transportation network that moves packages.
That balance matters for interpreting any Amazon jobs news. When Amazon announces layoffs, they almost always hit the corporate minority; when it announces hiring, it is almost always operations. The two move on completely different cycles.
| Segment | Share of workforce | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Fulfillment & operations | ~75%+ | Warehouse associates, sortation, transportation |
| Corporate & technology | ~350,000 (~22%) | Engineering, AWS, retail, advertising, HR |
| U.S. vs. international | ~70% U.S. | Roughly 1.1M of 1.576M based in the U.S. |
Source: Amazon disclosures compiled by CNBC and GeekWire. Segment shares are approximate; Amazon does not publish an exact corporate-versus-operations split.
The 390,000 drivers who don't show up in the count
Amazon's Delivery Service Partner program is the clearest example of workers who are Amazon's in practice but not on paper. Launched in 2018, the program now spans roughly 4,500 small-business owners who hire and manage delivery drivers under the Amazon brand. Amazon says the program has created about 390,000 driving jobs. Those drivers wear Amazon uniforms and drive Amazon-branded vans, but they are employed by the DSP owner, not Amazon, so none of them appear in the 1.576 million.
Layer on Amazon Flex, the app-based gig program where individuals deliver packages in their own cars, and the delivery workforce grows again by an undisclosed amount. This is the structural reason the honest answer to the headline question is a range, not a single figure.
How Amazon's headcount got here
Amazon's workforce more than doubled in two years during the pandemic, from 798,000 at the end of 2019 to a peak of 1,608,000 in 2021. The company then cut back for two straight years as demand normalized, bottoming at 1,525,000 in 2023 before resuming modest growth. At 1,576,000, the 2025 workforce is still below its 2021 peak.
| Year | Employees | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 798,000 | Pre-pandemic baseline |
| 2020 | 1,298,000 | +63% pandemic hiring surge |
| 2021 | 1,608,000 | All-time peak |
| 2022 | 1,541,000 | Post-surge correction |
| 2023 | 1,525,000 | Headcount trough |
| 2024 | 1,556,000 | Modest rebound |
| 2025 | 1,576,000 | +1.3% year over year |
The flattening is not an accident. In January 2026 Amazon confirmed it had cut about 30,000 corporate roles since October 2025, the largest reduction in its history, though that still amounts to a small share of a workforce dominated by operations. At the same time, automation is doing the heavier work of holding operations headcount down.
Common questions about Amazon's workforce
How many people work for Amazon in total?
Amazon reported 1,576,000 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31, 2025. That figure excludes contractors, seasonal temps, and delivery drivers employed through partner programs, so the number of people earning a living from Amazon is higher.
Is Amazon the largest employer in the US?
No. Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the United States, behind Walmart, which employs roughly 1.6 million U.S. workers. Amazon has about 1.1 million U.S.-based employees.
How many Amazon employees work in warehouses versus offices?
The large majority, well over a million people, work in fulfillment and transportation operations. Only about 350,000 work in corporate and technology roles.
Do Amazon delivery drivers count as Amazon employees?
Usually not. Most drivers are employed by Delivery Service Partners, independent businesses that operate under the Amazon brand, or work as gig contractors through Amazon Flex. The DSP program has created about 390,000 driving jobs that do not appear in Amazon's employee count.
How many robots does Amazon have?
Amazon surpassed one million deployed robots across its fulfillment network in July 2025, nearly matching the size of its human workforce. The robots handle transport, storage, and item picking alongside human associates.
Why is Amazon's headcount lower than its 2021 peak?
Amazon over-hired during the pandemic, reaching 1,608,000 employees in 2021, then trimmed its workforce as demand normalized and automation reduced the number of people needed per facility. Corporate layoffs in late 2025 pushed the count down further even as operations hiring continued.
How many seasonal workers does Amazon hire?
Amazon hired 250,000 seasonal workers across the U.S. for the 2025 holiday season, the third consecutive year at that level. These roles are temporary and are not part of the year-end employee count.
What the number actually tells you
If you need one figure, it is 1,576,000 direct employees as of year-end 2025, and it is defensible because it comes straight from Amazon's annual report. But treat it as the conservative floor. The company's real labor footprint, once you include the 390,000 delivery jobs, a quarter-million seasonal hires, and the gig drivers, is meaningfully larger than any single line in a filing.
The more useful insight for anyone tracking Amazon is the shape of the workforce, not just its size. It is overwhelmingly an operations company, its corporate and warehouse populations move on opposite cycles, and it now runs nearly as many robots as people. When you read the next round of Amazon jobs headlines, the first question worth asking is which of those workforces the story is actually about.
How we built this
The headline figure and the year-by-year series come directly from Amazon's 10-K annual report filings, which report total full-time and part-time employees as of December 31 each year. Segment splits (corporate versus operations, U.S. versus international) are approximate and drawn from Amazon disclosures as compiled by CNBC and GeekWire, because Amazon does not publish an exact breakdown. Delivery Service Partner, seasonal hiring, and robot figures come from Amazon's own newsroom. Contractor and gig-driver totals are not disclosed by Amazon and are described here as ranges rather than point estimates. Where a number is an estimate or a compiled figure rather than an audited filing, we say so inline.
- Amazon 2025 Annual Report (10-K) — total employees, year-end headcount
- Amazon number of employees, 2012–2026 (MacroTrends) — historical headcount series
- Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot (Amazon) — robot fleet milestone
- Everything you need to know about the Delivery Service Partner program (Amazon) — DSP jobs created
- Amazon is creating 250,000 jobs in the US this holiday season (Amazon) — seasonal hiring
- Amazon confirms 16,000 more corporate job cuts, bringing total to 30,000 since October (GeekWire) — corporate restructuring
More from this research bucket
Ecommerce returns average roughly 19.3% of online sales, far above the in-store rate, and they cost retailers tens of billions in reverse logistics every year. This data study breaks down return rates by category, the true cost of a single return, fraud estimates, and the seasonal spike that makes January brutal for fulfillment operations.
Shopify no longer publishes merchant counts. Third-party trackers put the live-store figure anywhere from 2.85 million to 6.9 million in 2026 — here is why the numbers diverge and what each one actually measures.
Processing an online return costs retailers an average of about 21% of the order's value, and far more for apparel. This data study breaks down the cost as a share of the sale, the per-item cost stack, how it climbs by category, and the national-scale numbers worth citing.