Amazon fears it will run out of workers in the US due to very high churn

[MrSquished]

They fear they will literally have nobody left to hire if this churn rate keeps happening. Apparently people join Amazon and quit quickly. Obviously less skilled jobs will have higher churn, but this sounds rather remarkable. Anecdotally, I talked to a VP at JPMorgan who worked as a higher than mid-level manager at a busy NJ fulfillment center. He said the work there was pretty brutal and how they were with rating productivity, breaks, etc...Which was also tough on the managers, which is also partly why he left. Everyone likes to say, well they pay $15/hr which is so good - apparently that's not a high enough value for the work that goes on in these warehouses, and I'm sure that varies state to state where $15/hr gives you virtually no standard of living vs some.

Amazon burns through workers so quickly that executives are worried they'll run out of people to employ, according to a new report

Amazon's hourly staffers quit so frequently that executives are worried the company will run out of hirable workers, The New York Times reported.

www.businessinsider.com

Amazon has been hiring hundreds of thousands of workers for roles in its warehouses, which it calls fulfillment centers, but those employees have been quitting almost as fast as they can be hired, according to a huge report from The New York Times published on Tuesday.

Many of the over 350,000 workers Amazon hired from July to October stayed with the company "just days or weeks," the report said.

Hourly employees had a turnover rate of about 150% every year, data reviewed by The Times indicated. That led some Amazon executives to worry about running out of hirable employees in the US, the report said.

 

[dank69]

Hopefully our government can put aside their biases and address this crisis by crafting legislation that forces Americans to work for poverty wages.

 

[vi edit]

Not just shit wages, but actually treat employees as humans and not a mushy meatbag automated robot.

 

[nOOky]

It's unreasonable for these people to not want to work at a shitty job for shitty pay in a shitty work atmosphere while the owner pays very little taxes and is worth billions. How else will they achieve the American dream if they don't get off their lazy asses and at least try to be a billionaire by working for Amazon? Lazy slouches, I bet they're sucking the extra unemployment teat and sitting on their asses. The economy needs their slave labor.

 

[MrSquished]

This country treats unskilled labor like trash. They are supposed to work like robots, get paid less than 30K a year, go back to their below standard lives, then wake up and do it again, for years and years. Labor is just not respected in many industries.

Bezos created Amazon. One of the most impressive companies in the history of the world. But at the end of the day, it will fail without its worker drones, yet they are dismissed as trash by so many in this country. Pretty much the GQP party, the party of the average Joe working man.

 

[Dulanic]

It's simple, you create a better work environment and pay more? They make billions and billions, they can afford it.

 

[repoman0]

Good, those shitty warehouses sound completely dehumanizing and Amazon can afford to pay and treat its warehouse workers better to draw them back. I’ve been avoiding them almost entirely for the past year or two in favor of giving my money to less garbage businesses.

 

[Homerboy]

It's simple, you create a better work environment and pay more? They make billions and billions, they can afford it.

Came here to say this.
But you can't allow the blue collar workers and lower/middle class to get a better life at the cost of the Wall Street billionaires!

 

[HomerJS]

Not just shit wages, but actually treat employees as humans and not a mushy meatbag automated robot.

Imagine that

 

[fskimospy]

This is one of the underrated benefits of actually attempting to get to full employment instead of limping along all these years. Sure we could regulate work and prevent Amazon from having these conditions but enforcement is cumbersome and laws are hard to write that cover everything.

An easier and better answer is to make places like Uber, Lyft, and Amazon actually compete for workers because their staff can just quit and go elsewhere.

Instead of all these fancy people at the fed trying to work out what the optimal interest rate/fiscal policy is maybe we should just keep rates low and deficit spend until Amazon is forced to treat their workers decently.

 

[shortylickens]

As much money as they are making, Amazon could work people 30 hours per week with a livable salary and still keep the warehouses operating 24/7.

 

[MtnMan]

Make the executives piss in bottles instead of going to the restroom.

 

[ivwshane]

This is one of the underrated benefits of actually attempting to get to full employment instead of limping along all these years. Sure we could regulate work and prevent Amazon from having these conditions but enforcement is cumbersome and laws are hard to write that cover everything.

An easier and better answer is to make places like Uber, Lyft, and Amazon actually compete for workers because their staff can just quit and go elsewhere.

Instead of all these fancy people at the fed trying to work out what the optimal interest rate/fiscal policy is maybe we should just keep rates low and deficit spend until Amazon is forced to treat their workers decently.

Which is also why we need universal health care, so employees are more empowered to leave a shitty job.

When a business has a high churn rate, it’s not the employees that are the problem, it’s management. With a company as big as Amazon, it’s more than just lower level management, it’s the upper management that is the issue, more specifically the ceo.

 

[WelshBloke]

Make the executives piss in bottles instead of going to the restroom.

Or let the workers throw their piss bottles at the executives!

 

[cytg111]

Seriously, as we do with exchange students, some of you should take a half year contract somewhere in Scandinavia. See how it can be if the wealth is distributed just a little bit different. Not much, just a little bit.

 

[Wreckem]

I know someone that works in an Amazon warehouse part time as a second job. They abg 40000 steps a day when they work. A normal person cannot sustain that for long.

 

[ivwshane]

I know someone that works in an Amazon warehouse part time as a second job. They abg 40000 steps a day when they work. A normal person cannot sustain that for long.

That's a lot!! That's double what people I know do that work in other warehouse type jobs.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Or let the workers throw their piss bottles at the executives!

What is this, Team Fortress 2?

 

[woolfe9998]

Yes, well, I too know someone who works there. She works in their corporate offices - though she's allowed to telecommute 3-4 days a week - makes 15x what the warehouse workers do, and any steps she takes on a daily basis are not on account of her job. The only bodily movement required is her fingers across a keyboard.

I suspect if Amazon is seeing this much churn in their warehouses, they're smart enough to eventually make adjustments to either pay, working conditions, or both.

 

[vi edit]

Yes, well, I too know someone who works there. She works in their corporate offices - though she's allowed to telecommute 3-4 days a week - makes 15x what the warehouse workers do, and any steps she takes on a daily basis are not on account of her job. The only bodily movement required is her fingers across a keyboard.

I suspect if Amazon is seeing this much churn in their warehouses, they're smart enough to eventually make adjustments to either pay, working conditions, or both.

The churn won't change anything. So long as people are applying and showing up, they won't change. Only thing that will force change is no one wanting to work for them and/or consumer activism boycotting them enough that they start to feel it.

 

[vi edit]

My last employer (A director over my division) told me on Day 2 of working there "You either drink the Koolaid here or you quit". Welcome to corporate culture. There is no desire to change.

 

[woolfe9998]

The churn won't change anything. So long as people are applying and showing up, they won't change. Only thing that will force change is no one wanting to work for them and/or consumer activism boycotting them enough that they start to feel it.

Even with available replacements, isn't the churn still a problem as at any given time, most of their workers are totally inexperienced?

 

[mect]

This is one of the underrated benefits of actually attempting to get to full employment instead of limping along all these years. Sure we could regulate work and prevent Amazon from having these conditions but enforcement is cumbersome and laws are hard to write that cover everything.

An easier and better answer is to make places like Uber, Lyft, and Amazon actually compete for workers because their staff can just quit and go elsewhere.

Instead of all these fancy people at the fed trying to work out what the optimal interest rate/fiscal policy is maybe we should just keep rates low and deficit spend until Amazon is forced to treat their workers decently.

Along with a strong enough social safety net that employees don't feel like their only options are to either accept the shitty working conditions or starve. And so that employees have sufficient time outside of work to search for better employment.

 

[vi edit]

Even with available replacements, isn't the churn still a problem as at any given time, most of their workers are totally inexperienced?

Bad productivity is still more productivity than no productivity. And I'm sure they've run a dozen different models on what their return on better pay and a happier/more productive workforce is vs lower pay and eternal churn. Obviously they find churn acceptable enough that they don't care enough to resolve it.

 

[tweaker2]

Automation must be hard to integrate there. If it were possible there'd be bots repairing sorting bots to keep them running.

I'm sure the bean counters there are in a desperate search for ways to cut out humans from the workforce seeing how they'd much rather install as many revolving doors at the employees entrance as possible than find ways for their hired help to have reasons to stay there.