I think you're vastly underestimating how much money Amazon makes. So Amazon currently hires 120,000 people at $12/hr for 10 weeks for a total cost of somewher

I think you're vastly underestimating how much money Amazon makes. So Amazon currently hires 120,000 people at $12/hr for 10 weeks for a total cost of somewhere near $576M. This counts as COGS and is included in their gross margin. If we just multiply that figure by (52 / 10) and subtract out the $576M, we can see that it would decrease their annual Gross Margin by $2.5B. Add on an additional 30% of the combined $3B in salary expense since I doubt the temp workers get benefits, and you'd be looking at a total of ~$3.4 billion. So in 2016, this would've changed their gross income from $47.7 (35% GM) billion to $44.3 billion (32.5% GM).