Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week.

This is just a stealth layoff. They do not give a fuck about actual RTO. This is targeted to make expensive people (top performers, most able to find another job) and women, the disabled, etc. quit. At least that is who will be most impacted by it.

It also hollows out the best people from the org, as mentioned, which will have consequences later. Has zero — absolutely zero — to do with productivity or any other excuse. This is just a method of conducting a layoff without the bad headlines (so they can blame the workers) and so they do not have to pay severance by forcing resignations.