Abdelaziz Testas, Ph.D., is a seasoned data scientist with over a decade of experience in data analysis and machine learning. He earned his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Leeds University in England and holds a Master’s degree in the same field from Glasgow University in Scotland. Additionally, he has acquired several certifications in computer science and data science.

For more than 10 years, Abdelaziz served as a Data Scientist, Senior Data Scientist, and Lead Data Scientist at Nielsen, where he played a pivotal role in enhancing the company’s audience measurement capabilities. He was instrumental in planning, initiating, and executing end-to-end data science projects, and in developing methodologies that advanced Nielsen’s digital ad and content rating products. His expertise in media measurement and data science drove the creation of cutting-edge solutions.

Recently, Abdelaziz transitioned to the public sector, joining the State of California's Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI). In his new role, he leverages his coding and data science leadership skills to make a meaningful impact, supporting HCAI’s mission to ensure quality, equitable, and affordable health care for all Californians.

Abdelaziz is the author of two books:

Distributed Machine Learning with PySpark: Migrating Effortlessly from Pandas and Scikit-Learn (Apress, Nov 2023)

Building Scalable Deep Learning Pipelines on AWS: Develop, Train, and Deploy Deep Learning Models (Apress, Dec 2024)

Amazon is planning another major wave of corporate layoffs, and reports suggest thousands more office jobs could be eliminated as early as this week, potentially around 16,000 in this round alone, on top of the reductions announced last year. Altogether, Amazon appears to be pursuing a broader goal of eliminating roughly 30,000 corporate positions, which would represent the largest corporate workforce reduction in the company’s history.

These layoffs are concentrated in corporate and tech functions, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), retail operations, Prime Video, HR, and other office-based roles, rather than warehouse or fulfillment positions.

In October of last year, when Andy Jassy oversaw the elimination of approximately 14,000 roles, he publicly attributed the cuts largely to AI-driven efficiency gains. However, this explanation was challenged by members of the U.S. Senate, who sent a letter asserting that Amazon has a documented history of terminating U.S. workers and subsequently applying for H-1B visas, casting doubt on the claim that AI was the primary driver.

Following that scrutiny, Amazon’s leadership softened and reframed its narrative, emphasizing that the layoffs were instead about reducing bureaucracy, streamlining management layers, and organizational restructuring—not simply cost cutting or AI automation, even though AI continues to be discussed as part of Amazon’s long-term transformation.

Since then, the political and regulatory environment has shifted. Trump has imposed a $100,000 visa processing fee for new H-1B applications, and lawmakers are now more actively monitoring companies that lay off U.S. workers and then seek to replace them with visa labor.

Given this context, it is increasingly unlikely that Amazon will rely heavily on new H-1B applications in this round of cuts. A more plausible outcome is that jobs are being offshored entirely, relocated to significantly cheaper labor markets outside the United States, rather than replaced domestically—whether by AI or by foreign visa holders.

#AmazonLayoffs #TechLayoffs #USJobs #H1BVisas #Offshoring

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