Amazon plans to cut some 16,000 workers across the company, in its latest round of layoffs.

Job losses were first rumored last week, and then accidentally leaked when a draft email written by Colleen Aubrey, a SVP at cloud division Amazon Web Services (AWS), was included in a calendar invitation sent to a number of Amazon workers.

The 'Project Dawn' invitation said: "This is a continuation of the work we've been doing for more than a year to strengthen the company by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy, so that we can move faster for customers.

"Changes like this are hard on everyone. These decisions are difficult and made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success," it added.

In a follow-up statement, VP of people Beth Galetti said that "most" US-based employees will have 90 days to look for a new role internally.

The cuts follow 14,000 layoffs in October. "Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm – where we announce broad reductions every few months," Aubrey continued. "That’s not our plan."

She said that Amazon would "continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future," despite the cuts in the cloud business.