Amazon faces a profound restructuring that not only affects the automation of your warehouses and the dismissal of 30,000 employees on staffthere is also removing your Amazon Go stores and has restructured its shipments. That has generated a domino effect in companies that depend on the e-commerce giant.
UPS has had to adapt quickly, reducing its dependence on unprofitable packages from Amazon, which will result in 30,000 layoffs and the closure of 24 facilities throughout 2026, as he collected Reuters.
The break with Amazon does not come for free. The decision has not been made overnight. In January 2025, the delivery company already announced that it was going to reduce its exposure to low-profit shipments.
Among those shipments are those from Amazon, which barely left room. Carol Tomé, CEO of UPS noted that “We are in the final six months of our accelerated Amazon phase-out plan and, by all of 2026, we intend to cut another million packages per day, while continuing to reconfigure our network.”
This movement reacts to Amazon’s decision to diversify your delivery peopleforcing UPS to pivot its structure towards more profitable clients such as pharmaceutical companies.
The “minimis” crisis. Part of that strategic shift in shipping has been accelerated by the change of regulations in the so-called “minimis” shipments: low-value shipments from e-commerce platforms such as Shein or Temu that move millions of deliveries a day.
The increase in tariff requirements has also tightened the rope that reduces shipping profitability of these platforms that use mass shipping models as Amazon does. Other companies like DHL They have already limited their shipments of this type of packages.
Thousands of jobs on the line. The 30,000 layoffs planned for 2026 represent 6% of UPS’s 490,000 employees. Brian Dykes, UPS chief financial officer, clarified that the company’s priority was to avoid “hard layoffs” and the reduction of the workforce will be carried out through voluntary retirements and freezing hiring for positions that remain vacant.
According what was published by The New York Timesit is not the first time that UPS has made a personnel cut of this caliber. 2025 closed with the layoff of 48,000 drivers and warehouse workers and the closure of 93 buildings. In 2024, layoffs amounted to 12,000 positions.
Layoffs with benefits to avoid future losses. According to the annual balance presented by the company a few days ago, the net profit for 2025 was $5,572 million, down 3.6% compared to last year. The company’s total revenue fell 2.6% to $88,661 million. Its parcel business contracted 1.4% to $59,519 million.
In its 2025 earnings presentation, the company viewed its disconnection from Amazon as a necessary step to focus on higher-profit products to drive company growth. “Looking ahead, after completing Amazon’s gradual transition, 2026 will be a turning point in the execution of our strategy to achieve growth and sustained margin expansion,” said Tomé. in his statement of income.
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Image | Unsplash (Aaron Doucett)
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