Amazon CEO tells staff to work in office three days a week or look for another job

Amazon workers should look elsewhere for a job unless they are prepared to come into the office at least three days a week, the tech company’s chief executive has suggested.

Andy Jassy made the statement in a meeting where he made clear his frustration that some employees were not coming in three days a week, despite that being Amazon’s official policy. The comments were first reported by Insider.

He said: “It’s past the time to disagree and commit. If you can’t disagree and commit … it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon because we are going back to the office at least three days a week.”

Amazon had instructed its employees to return to the office three times a week starting in May, after previous policies that allowed individual teams to decide whether they came into the office or not. Through an announcement on the company’s blog, Jessy said the leadership team had decided that it was better for Amazon’s culture and easier to learn from each other and collaborate more effectively when they are in office together.

This comes after Amazon said it would lay off an additional 9,000 employees, as well as the 18,000 roles it announced it would cut in January.

Almost 30,000 Amazon staff signed an internal petition against the return-to-office mandate in May.

The petition read: “Amazon’s top-down, one-size-fits-all RTO [return to office] mandate undermines the diverse, accessible future that we want to be a part of.”

Amazon employees also participated in a worldwide walkout, organised by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and a remote work advocacy group. The walkout was a protest against the company’s slow progress on climate goals and the return to office mandate.

This month, some Amazon workers in the US reported being tracked and penalised for not spending sufficient time in the company’s offices, an email sent to employees revealed.

The emails received by employees noted that staff members were “not currently meeting our expectation of joining your colleagues in the office at least three days a week”, according to the Financial Times.

Amazon’s move follows Apple and X’s measures to get employees back in the office, with Apple threatening punitive action against staff who did not return to the office part-time, and the CEO of X, Elon Musk, ordering all employees to be in office unless they had a specific exemption.

Amazon was contacted for comment.