I saw a report that they may be laying off 10,000 workers. Looks like that is about 3% of their workforce.
I saw a report that they may be laying off 10,000 workers. Looks like that is about 3% of their workforce.
The layoff party has just begun.
Yep. I think it will pick up steam as soon as we get through the rest of this year.Originally Posted by ETexBasscat
So this mean that businesses wouldn’t have to beg people to come to work for them anymore? They can put away the sign that says long hair, freaky people can now apply?
I'm sure it's pure coincidence but recently, there was threats of unionizing at some of their warehouses. Day's later they showcased the robots that would replace a bunch of workers. The technology has existed for a few years now to operate their warehouses mostly with robots but I think they went with human workers for tax benefits. It sucks for workers, but you get rid of the worker and profits go up.
They're eating the Penguins, they're eating the seals...
Someone will need to maintain and repair the robots which I’m sure would pay better than slinging packages.
Robotics and IT all but insure the US will see universal income.
Denying it, fighting it, trying to reengineer it, won't change it.
Amazon is leading the charge at one end, but there are others.
Maybe Amazon got tired of hearing their workers bitchin about working conditions and performance requirements and they got busy engineering more automation.
It's been the plan for a VERY long time and it's been an integral part of the warehouse & distribution system.
Had the task of insuring new facilities had finished lubricants to get them operational. Very complex technology.
The workers they are laying off are in HR, devices and other computer science oriented fields. The layoffs are not targeted toward the workers working in the warehouse.
Maybe they figured it's cheaper to hire temp warehouse workers instead of using robots. As big as their warehouses are, probably cost prohibitive to implement a robotic order fulfillment system. My buddy works at DJO Global and the warehouse is a lot smaller. They have a system that a worker stands at the workstation loading and unloading boxes from robots that do all the running around.
Actually that 10k is ~3% of corporate workers, which is who they are laying off...think they are about 1.5 million in total worldwide.
Amazon isn't profitable in areas most would expect. If they'd spin off the technology side, it would be very clearer.
AWS is the fly paper, Prime is the attractant. At some point, there's likely to be a division, upstream & downstream.
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