Agreed. These numbers are being cherry-picked. From Amazon quarterly filings[0][1], here's their employees count:

  - Q3 2019: 750,000 employees
  - Q4 2019: 798,000 employees
  - Q1 2020: 840,400 employees
  - Q2 2020: 876,800 employees
  - Q3 2020: 1,125,300 employees
  - Q4 2020: 1,298,000 employees
  - Q1 2021: 1,271,000 employees
  - Q2 2021: 1,335,000 employees
  - Q3 2021: 1,468,000 employees
  - Q4 2021: 1,608,000 employees
  - Q1 2022: 1,622,000 employees
  - Q2 2022: 1,523,000 employees
  - Q3 2022: 1,544,000 employees
  - Q4 2022: 1,541,000 employees
  - Q1 2023: 1,465,000 employees
  - Q2 2023: 1,461,000 employees
  - Q3 2023: 1,500,000 employees
  - Q4 2023: 1,525,000 employees

The 1.6M count was a clear seasonal/stay-at-home blip.

[0] https://ir.aboutamazon.com/quarterly-results/default.aspx [1] https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/...