Since Q4 2022, Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees. The cost-cutting campaign is impacting all of the firm's divisions, including Amazon Web Services, the global leader in cloud computing.

"There's more energy, collaboration, and connections happening since we've been working together at least three days per week, and we've heard this from lots of employees and the businesses that surround our offices," Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement.

"We continue to look at the best ways to bring more teams together in the same locations, and we'll communicate directly with employees as we make decisions that affect them."

According to the Journal's report, Amazon's push to mandate a broader return to office policy is meeting with resistance from many workers, including those who speculate that the company may be using the relocation edict as another method of reducing the workforce through voluntary resignations.

Amazon employees being asked to relocate will be eligible for relocation benefits, the company said.

Earlier this year, Amazon shifted from a policy that allowed individual teams and managers to decide how often to be in the office to a mandate that employees come into the office at least three days a week.

"It's easier to learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture when we're in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues," CEO Andy Jassy said, in a message to employees when the policy shift went into effect.

In addition to the main hubs of Seattle, San Francisco and NYC, Amazon recently opened the 2.2M SF first phase of its HQ2 project in Arlington, VA—known as Metropolitan Park—while announcing it is pausing construction on the second phase of the project. When completed, the HQ2 project encompasses up to 25K offices.

The company also has large office campuses in Dallas, Nashville and Austin. Nashville is home to Amazon's 566K SF operations center.