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I mean, they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. Good move. They have more to do though. I've w

I mean, they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. Good move. They have more to do though. I've went through a few articles on this but I didn't see any of them mention what Amazon's minimum actual pay was before this, just the federal minimum wage. Anybody know?

EpicEng 8y ago
For what it's worth, someone on reddit says $12 https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/9kpeal/amazon_raises_minimum_wage_to_15_for_all_us/e70tgj8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/9kpeal/amazon_raises_...
- shimon 8y ago
  Quick back-of-the-envelope math: Let's assume this raise will affect 250k workers this coming holiday season, bumping their pay from $12 to $15 (+$3). Over 12 weeks at 40h/week, this represents an additional $360M in labor cost. Using AMZN's 2017 revenue of 177.9B, this equates to 17.7 revenue-hours.
  - skrebbel 8y ago
    Why are you comparing 12 weeks with the entire 2017 revenue? You'd have a better argument that this is peanuts for them if you'd make a fair and clear comparison.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > Why are you comparing 12 weeks with the entire 2017 revenue? They aren't. They're comparing to revenue per hour. It doesn't matter what period of time you calculate revenue per hour with, you always get the same number.
      - skrebbel 8y ago
        They're comparing 12 weeks of warehouse work to revenue per hour. Why twelve weeks? It still makes no sense.
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        You have to use some amount of time to get a number measured in dollars. What amount of time do you want to use?
        celticninja 8y ago
        Think of it like this, 12 weeks of extra labour cost is offset by 17.7 revenue hours, you could also say 1 weeks extra labour cost is the equivalent of just under 1.5 revenue hours.
        shimon 8y ago
        Just trying to put some reasonable bounds on this estimate. I assumed 12 weeks is "the holiday shopping season" where Amazon has a lot of extra workers who would benefit. And I guessed 250k of them getting $3 raises. You could also guess at the total cost in other ways, many of which would be superior. The overall goal of these lazy estimates is to understand how significant a cost this is for a company like Amazon. Could activists have hoped for more? Are other companies, for whom the costs would be felt quite differently, likely to offer something similar?
        developer2 8y ago
        12 weeks is (approximately) a business quarter. Corporate finances are most commonly aggregated across a quarterly schedule.
    - eximius 8y ago
      so multiply the number by 4ish to get the whole year? In any case, it's not clear that revenue hours is a meaningful comparison anyway because it ignores how much of their cost is labor vs anything else.
    - shimon 8y ago
      I'm not making the argument that this is peanuts. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm just trying to get some perspective on the scale here, relative to other things vying for the time and attention of Amazon's management.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Looking at revenue is completely meaningless. You need to look at margins to see the effect on a company. Imagine you take a loan of $1000 to buy $1000 of gizmos and then sell them to me for $1300. You don't have $1300, you have $300 after covering your overhead costs. And in the case of Amazon you have far more overhead costs than just the costs of goods. And the government also attaches significant tax increases when you pay employees more -- paying an employee $10 more is substantially more than $10 in cost to the employer. Amazon's 2017 financials showed a final net income of $3 billion. They do reinvest aggressively in their company so a fair chunk of their costs are going to be 'voluntary', but that voluntary expenditure is the very action creating all these jobs. In any case, this is going to be a very substantial cost to them.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    What's your point? That a worker, of any position or skill level, should make a salary proportional to their employer's revenue?
- CodeM0nkey 8y ago
  It's lower than $12. This job posting lists $10.50 and up for a warehouse position: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/881584480 https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/881584480
umanwizard 8y ago
Did Amazon actually pay any worse or have worse working conditions than any other unskilled warehouse job? If so, why didn’t the employees change jobs? If not, why is so much criticism directed at Amazon specifically, rather than at capitalism itself?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Surely "this trillion dollar company led by the world's richest man pays its workers peanuts" is a criticism of capitalism?
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    You don’t think people have been criticizing Amazon specifically? I think they have.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      It's usually best, when criticizing something, to come prepared with concrete examples that demonstrate the issue you're talking about.
      - i_cant_speel 8y ago
        Here you go. I couldn't find anything that even registers in comparison to Amazon aside from Walmart. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=amazon%20warehouse%20workers,sears%20warehouse%20workers,meijer%20warehouse%20workers,walmart%20warehouse%20workers,home%20depot%20warehouse%20workers https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
        ceejayoz 8y ago
        That makes a lot of sense - there aren't that many companies that "even register in comparison to Amazon". On top of that, most of the other world's-largest companies to compare against aren't as labor-dependent. (Meijer is a regional chain. Sears is nearly out-of-business. Using them as examples would fall flat.)
askmike 8y ago
> they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. That's because they treat their workers terrible. They're a huge company with a lot of profit and how people at the bottom of the chain are treated is maddening. They're seen as an example of how not to treat workers (and for good reason). They definitely should not be lauded for this: They did some calculations and projections which showed that raising the minimum wage brings more benefits (PR stunt, not being the target of new legislation anymore, etc) than downsides (now having to pay X more to some people). I refuse to believe Bezos woke up this morning with a new moral sense to change the ship around.
- i_cant_speel 8y ago
  That's why any company treats any of their employees well. Google isn't giving their employees all these perks out of the goodness of their heart. They give them to attract the best talent to make the most money. Amazon is doing the same thing.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    that's the whole point of the job market. The dysfunction displayed by Amazon is evidence of a supply/demand imbalance in the job market for warehousing roles, because if people have an option to move to another company that does not treat them badly they generally will do. As it stands I'm guessing the ratio of Amazon applicants to positions is way too high meaning they can afford a high turnover rate and focus solely on increasing profit per head by squeezing their people for productivity and cutting costs spent on benefits. It's basically the same as those call centers that employ and mistreat students.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      I worked in a call center and I used to always wonder why they'd accept such extreme turnover, given that there were a few weeks of training before they could put you on (the fact that there was a course in touch-typing as part of that training probably gives you an idea where the bar was for hiring). But I'd read some analysis that suggested that in some ways the employers running these systems found that desirable, because it was hard to unionize a workplace where people didn't stick around for a whole year on average.
jzymbaluk 8y ago
>Amazon's starting pay varies by location — $10 an hour at a warehouse in Austin, Texas, for example, and $13.50 an hour in Robbinsville, New Jersey. For 2017, the median Amazon employee earned just under $28,500, according to company filings. From the CNBC article: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-to-15-for-all-us-employees.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-t...
- walshemj 8y ago
  For information in the UK (Milton Keynes) for a Fulfilment Associate its. • £8.20 per hour (days) to £10.16 per hour (nights). Rising to £10.50 per hour (days) to £12.46 per hour (nights) from November 1st 2018. • Overtime rates between £12.30 per hour and £16.40 per hour. Rising to £15.75 per hour to £21.00 per hour from November 1st 2018.
  - badpun 8y ago
    If anyone's interested, in Poland it's the equivalent of $4.50-$5/h, depending on the location.
AlmostAsian 8y ago
It’s about $6.

EpicEng 8y ago

For what it's worth, someone on reddit says $12 https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/9kpeal/amazon_raises_minimum_wage_to_15_for_all_us/e70tgj8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/9kpeal/amazon_raises_...

shimon 8y ago
Quick back-of-the-envelope math: Let's assume this raise will affect 250k workers this coming holiday season, bumping their pay from $12 to $15 (+$3). Over 12 weeks at 40h/week, this represents an additional $360M in labor cost. Using AMZN's 2017 revenue of 177.9B, this equates to 17.7 revenue-hours.
- skrebbel 8y ago
  Why are you comparing 12 weeks with the entire 2017 revenue? You'd have a better argument that this is peanuts for them if you'd make a fair and clear comparison.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > Why are you comparing 12 weeks with the entire 2017 revenue? They aren't. They're comparing to revenue per hour. It doesn't matter what period of time you calculate revenue per hour with, you always get the same number.
    - skrebbel 8y ago
      They're comparing 12 weeks of warehouse work to revenue per hour. Why twelve weeks? It still makes no sense.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        You have to use some amount of time to get a number measured in dollars. What amount of time do you want to use?
      - celticninja 8y ago
        Think of it like this, 12 weeks of extra labour cost is offset by 17.7 revenue hours, you could also say 1 weeks extra labour cost is the equivalent of just under 1.5 revenue hours.
      - shimon 8y ago
        Just trying to put some reasonable bounds on this estimate. I assumed 12 weeks is "the holiday shopping season" where Amazon has a lot of extra workers who would benefit. And I guessed 250k of them getting $3 raises. You could also guess at the total cost in other ways, many of which would be superior. The overall goal of these lazy estimates is to understand how significant a cost this is for a company like Amazon. Could activists have hoped for more? Are other companies, for whom the costs would be felt quite differently, likely to offer something similar?
      - developer2 8y ago
        12 weeks is (approximately) a business quarter. Corporate finances are most commonly aggregated across a quarterly schedule.
  - eximius 8y ago
    so multiply the number by 4ish to get the whole year? In any case, it's not clear that revenue hours is a meaningful comparison anyway because it ignores how much of their cost is labor vs anything else.
  - shimon 8y ago
    I'm not making the argument that this is peanuts. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm just trying to get some perspective on the scale here, relative to other things vying for the time and attention of Amazon's management.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Looking at revenue is completely meaningless. You need to look at margins to see the effect on a company. Imagine you take a loan of $1000 to buy $1000 of gizmos and then sell them to me for $1300. You don't have $1300, you have $300 after covering your overhead costs. And in the case of Amazon you have far more overhead costs than just the costs of goods. And the government also attaches significant tax increases when you pay employees more -- paying an employee $10 more is substantially more than $10 in cost to the employer. Amazon's 2017 financials showed a final net income of $3 billion. They do reinvest aggressively in their company so a fair chunk of their costs are going to be 'voluntary', but that voluntary expenditure is the very action creating all these jobs. In any case, this is going to be a very substantial cost to them.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  What's your point? That a worker, of any position or skill level, should make a salary proportional to their employer's revenue?
CodeM0nkey 8y ago
It's lower than $12. This job posting lists $10.50 and up for a warehouse position: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/881584480 https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/881584480

umanwizard 8y ago

Did Amazon actually pay any worse or have worse working conditions than any other unskilled warehouse job? If so, why didn’t the employees change jobs? If not, why is so much criticism directed at Amazon specifically, rather than at capitalism itself?

ceejayoz 8y ago
Surely "this trillion dollar company led by the world's richest man pays its workers peanuts" is a criticism of capitalism?
- umanwizard 8y ago
  You don’t think people have been criticizing Amazon specifically? I think they have.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    It's usually best, when criticizing something, to come prepared with concrete examples that demonstrate the issue you're talking about.
    - i_cant_speel 8y ago
      Here you go. I couldn't find anything that even registers in comparison to Amazon aside from Walmart. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=amazon%20warehouse%20workers,sears%20warehouse%20workers,meijer%20warehouse%20workers,walmart%20warehouse%20workers,home%20depot%20warehouse%20workers https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        That makes a lot of sense - there aren't that many companies that "even register in comparison to Amazon". On top of that, most of the other world's-largest companies to compare against aren't as labor-dependent. (Meijer is a regional chain. Sears is nearly out-of-business. Using them as examples would fall flat.)

askmike 8y ago

> they get such bad press for the way they treat their workers it only seems fair to laud them for this. That's because they treat their workers terrible. They're a huge company with a lot of profit and how people at the bottom of the chain are treated is maddening. They're seen as an example of how not to treat workers (and for good reason). They definitely should not be lauded for this: They did some calculations and projections which showed that raising the minimum wage brings more benefits (PR stunt, not being the target of new legislation anymore, etc) than downsides (now having to pay X more to some people). I refuse to believe Bezos woke up this morning with a new moral sense to change the ship around.

i_cant_speel 8y ago
That's why any company treats any of their employees well. Google isn't giving their employees all these perks out of the goodness of their heart. They give them to attract the best talent to make the most money. Amazon is doing the same thing.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  that's the whole point of the job market. The dysfunction displayed by Amazon is evidence of a supply/demand imbalance in the job market for warehousing roles, because if people have an option to move to another company that does not treat them badly they generally will do. As it stands I'm guessing the ratio of Amazon applicants to positions is way too high meaning they can afford a high turnover rate and focus solely on increasing profit per head by squeezing their people for productivity and cutting costs spent on benefits. It's basically the same as those call centers that employ and mistreat students.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I worked in a call center and I used to always wonder why they'd accept such extreme turnover, given that there were a few weeks of training before they could put you on (the fact that there was a course in touch-typing as part of that training probably gives you an idea where the bar was for hiring). But I'd read some analysis that suggested that in some ways the employers running these systems found that desirable, because it was hard to unionize a workplace where people didn't stick around for a whole year on average.

jzymbaluk 8y ago

>Amazon's starting pay varies by location — $10 an hour at a warehouse in Austin, Texas, for example, and $13.50 an hour in Robbinsville, New Jersey. For 2017, the median Amazon employee earned just under $28,500, according to company filings. From the CNBC article: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-to-15-for-all-us-employees.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-t...

walshemj 8y ago
For information in the UK (Milton Keynes) for a Fulfilment Associate its. • £8.20 per hour (days) to £10.16 per hour (nights). Rising to £10.50 per hour (days) to £12.46 per hour (nights) from November 1st 2018. • Overtime rates between £12.30 per hour and £16.40 per hour. Rising to £15.75 per hour to £21.00 per hour from November 1st 2018.
- badpun 8y ago
  If anyone's interested, in Poland it's the equivalent of $4.50-$5/h, depending on the location.

AlmostAsian 8y ago

It’s about $6.