Amazon is ordering thousands of its workers back to the office for at least three days per week, according to a company memo sent from chief executive Andy Jassy.
The move, which takes effect May 1, marks an end to the remote or hybrid-friendly policy that had been in place at Amazon since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
It also comes a month after Amazon confirmed plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees amid broader uncertainty in the economy.
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In defending the policy change, Jassy argued that in-person work would lead to better collaboration and company culture.
"It's not simple to bring many thousands of employees back to our offices around the world, so we're going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan," Jassy wrote in the memo.
"We know that it won't be perfect at first, but the office experience will steadily improve over the coming months (and years) as our real estate and facilities teams smooth out the wrinkles, and ultimately keep evolving how we want our offices to be set up to capture the new ways we want to work."
Jassy also said the in-person requirements would give a boost to the local economies where Amazon's offices are located, calling out the company's "urban headquarter locations in the Puget Sound, Virginia, Nashville and the dozens of cities around the world where our employees go to the office."
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