Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has addressed criticism and speculation regarding the company’s latest RTO mandate, saying it is not “a backdoor layoff.”

Jassy informed the company’s employees in mid-September that they would be required to return to the office five-days-a-week, beginning in 2025. Needless to say, the mandate has not been popular with employees. A Blind survey shows that as many as 73% of employees are considering a job change. The mandate has been so unpopular that some have speculated Amazon is using the mandate to reduce its headcount, effectively engaging in a “backdoor layoff.”

According to a meeting transcript, seen by Reuters, Jassy has denied any such plan.

“A number of people I’ve seen theorized that the reason we were doing this is, it’s a backdoor layoff, or we made some sort of deal with city or cities,” said Jassy.

“I can tell you both of those are not true. You know, this was not a cost play for us. This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture,” he said.

It’s doubtful Jassy’s comments will do much to assuage employees. In fact, it may anger them even more. If the RTO mandate was an effort to force employees to resign, there would at least be hope that hybrid and remote work would continue once Amazon’s headcount dropped to the desired level.

With Jassy confirming that the RTO mandate has nothing to do with headcount reduction, and is an effort to return to pre-pandemic norms, employees have little hope their voice will be heard. That hasn’t stopped them from trying, however, with hundreds of employees recently writing a letter to leadership to express their dismay with the company’s decision-making process, and especially with the lack of data behind it.

“We were appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a five-day in-office mandate,” the letter begins, as seen and reported by Reuters.

The employees went on to say that AWS CEO Matt Garman’s comments that nine of 10 employees were in favor of the mandate were “inconsistent with the experiences of many employees” and are “misrepresenting the realities of working at Amazon.”

The fact that Jassy feels the need to once again address the mandate is an indication just how unpopular it is—and how much it may cost the company in the long run.