leaked memi..Amazon to run out of employees ( turnover is 3% a week)

[Demovictory9]

https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage

Amazon is facing a looming crisis: It could run out of people to hire in its US warehouses by 2024, according to leaked Amazon internal research from mid-2021 that Recode reviewed. If that happens, the online retailer’s service quality and growth plans could be at risk, and its e-commerce dominance along with it


Raising wages and increasing warehouse automation are two of the six “levers” Amazon could pull to delay this labor crisis by a few years, but only a series of sweeping changes to how the company does business and manages its employees will significantly alter the timeline, Amazon staff predicted.

“If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” the research, which hasn’t previously been reported, says.

The report warned that Amazon’s labor crisis was especially imminent in a few locales, with internal models showing that the company was expected to exhaust its entire available labor pool in the Phoenix, Arizona, metro area by the end of 2021, and in the Inland Empire region of California, roughly 60 miles east of Los Angeles, by the end of 2022. Amazon’s internal report calculated the available pool of workers based on characteristics like income levels and a household’s proximity to current or planned Amazon facilities; the pool does not include the entire US adult population.

[getagrip_already]

1. there are always prison workers....

or people who haven't paid their bills to amz.

[Dysfunctional]

9. Prison workers, that's still part of the Constitution, isn't it?

[getagrip_already]

10. yes, slavery is still permitted in prisons......

which can become very convenient if debtors can be incarcerated. waiting on a scotus decision ......

[Dysfunctional]

13. It could become part of the Republican platform.

Arrest homeless people and say you are giving them a job, a place to live, and 3 meals a day.

[NightWatcher]

2. The entire service industry is running out of labor.

Stores and restaurants around me are having to close early, open late, skip days... due to the lack of labor.

I don't see a solution for this

[hauckeye]

3. But there are many immigrants who want to come here

Why can’t we vet them and let them take those jobs?

[vercetti2021]

4. There isn't

No one wants work for slave wages or being treated like shit anymore. No benefits or anything. Its futile

[Mariana]

15. And they don't have to work those jobs anymore.

There are better opportunities available now.

[vercetti2021]

16. Exactly!

I can do better doing OnlyFans than a shitty retail job.

[Haggard Celine]

7. There's a severe shortage around here, too.

A lot of the MAGAts around here are saying that the lazy milennials, or whoever, are too lazy to work and that's why there are so many unfilled jobs. But unemployment is very low. I think we have a shortage of people. The economy is overheating and has created more jobs than we can fill. That is, unless we let in more immigrants, but some people are totally against that. I think it would work out great, but some people are too scared that they're being "replaced."

[getagrip_already]

11. say the magats without jobs.....

living on disability or as "independent contractors" doing whatever grift they can by with.

[MANative]

5. That kind of turnover rate is insustainable

My first thought as an HR exec is that they need to drastically, immediately, and legitimately change their employment practices and working conditions. I know at least a dozen people who work in mid-to-low level jobs at various Amazon facilities and they don't typically complain about pay. It's all about constant micro-management, unachievable metrics, and "Theory X"- type management practices. Development and growth are not an afterthought; they don't exist. Gallup Q12 (workplace metric survey) results showed consistently that the number one reason people stay on a job is the ability to learn and grow. The number one reason they leave is a bad (or no) relationship with a supervisor. This is fundamental stuff and fixable, but they clearly want the "crack the whip" culture.

[Sympthsical]

8. I think the supervisors were my favorite part

Amazon's line supervisors . . . sorry, ambassadors . . . were people who'd been there for maybe a year.

It's basically just workers babysitting other workers while the actual managers spent inordinate amounts of time chilling in the office chatting up one another.

It went exactly as well as that could be expected.

[Demovictory9]

14. Live radio program today..former amz employee said employees scheduled for one day off

Not two consequtive so no weekend to rest

[Sympthsical]

6. That's about the sum of it.

I worked around their hiring for about a year. I always wondered when the endless flow would end. People in, people out.

The fact of the matter is, people are made of flesh and blood. They can and do wear out. The number of repetitive movement injuries we'd see. There were a few times around Christmas, I walked out onto the floor and helped out. Nope. Not doing that eight hours a day nonstop. No way. It's not only physically wearing, but the time crunch involved was a high stress proposition. Imagine eight hours of on edge anxiety that does not stop.

People won't abide it for very long.

When I was around for about a year, there was relentless hiring. There was never, "Ok, we're good. We have enough people now." We just kept right on scheduling hiring events no matter how many people were employed, because corporate was well, well aware that people left in a steady stream. It was baked into the cake of the business model. There were always new people wandering the warehouse being trained.

One thing I would say about it. If you're young - particularly around the holidays - go for it. They pay well, and they allow people to work 60 hours a week during the holiday season. If you're healthy and you want to make a ton of money for an 18-22 year old, you can do a lot worse. And once those hours and all that overtime are gone? Bounce. Typically early February. You can keep your name in the system and they'll pick you up again next November. Lots of people do this.

But yeah. Reading this article, this was my surprised face.

[Demovictory9]

21. Thanks for the advice for the young. Driving past those large warehouses makes my knee twinge

[NCDem47]

12. Gee...

I would have thought Amazon would be all over this going to robot-everything! Screw the humans.

[Johnny2X2X]

17. It's the working conditions

Amazon is actually paying well enough and with some decent benefits. But they work people to death. And it's reportedly through mentally manipulative methods that make people feel like a rat in a cage.

For instance, have a friend who delivered for them, they have monitoring computers in those trucks that tell you when you should be back moving. You get bonus money for not tripping alarms that say you're going too slow. And just when you've mastered it to get your bonus, they either add to your route, raise your goals, or change to a route you don't know. It's a never ending game of more more more.

[MANative]

18. Completely consistent with the feedback I've heard from my acquaintances...

who worked there.

[Johnny2X2X]

20. It's just not sustainable

They ask more more more. You need to be able to get to a good place with mastering your job and stay there, feel like you've accomplished something. The system they have eliminates that.

For manual labor, when you get to a certain mastery, going to work becomes easy, you just cruise for weeks at a time and you just produce. Taking that goal away from people burns them out.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

19. They treat their workers like robots

maybe they should slow down and let people work at a normal pace.

[maxsolomon]

22. if they do, then they cannot deliver goods at the speed they've committed to.

anytime I use them (sorry, I use them), I always select the slowest delivery option. I never need anything that quickly.

[Liberal In Texas]

23. The amazing stat: 1 in every 153 workers in America work for Amazon.

1 in every 350 people in the ENTIRE population of the US work for Amazon.

https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2021/08/04/1-in-every-153-us-workers-now-works-for-amazon/