The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that although business has been booming, Amazon said Wednesday it was laying off 16,000 more corporate employees as it looked to trim bureaucracy and free up money for plans to spend heavily on artificial intelligence. A New York Times dispatch to The Globe says the cuts were widely expected across Amazon's corporate work force since October, when the company laid off 14,000 corporate employees. Another round of layoffs was expected for January, after the holiday shopping season. The company did not rule out more job cuts in the future, although it said it was not planning to create a "new rhythm" of layoffs every few months. Next week, Amazon is scheduled to report its financial results for the fourth quarter, which covered the holiday shopping season. Analysts expect sales surpassed $211-billion and that profits were more than $21-billion (all figures U.S.). In the previous quarter, July through September, the company's sales totalled $180-billion, and profit topped $21-billion. In late 2022 and early 2023, the company eliminated almost 30,000 positions. Amazon's home state, Washington, about 2,000 employees lost their jobs. Amazon has about 1.57 million employees.