5 ms·

No mention of basic economics in the article? It's rarely a case of "running out", merely the economics of supply and demand. If supply is low and demand is hig

by rlpb 5y ago

No mention of basic economics in the article? It's rarely a case of "running out", merely the economics of supply and demand. If supply is low and demand is high, expect the price to rise. In this case, that means that if you don't pay the price, you can expect to lose (or continue losing) the workers. In other words, it sounds to me that they aren't offering the pay and conditions the market requires.

rm445 5y ago
The interesting wrinkle is that they seem to need to source unusually energetic and resilient people, and instead they're hiring at some lower bar and having enormous turnover. It's an unusual twist on clearing the market - arguably they ought to raise wages, not so much to retain people by paying them enough that they stick it out in hell a bit longer, but so they can clear the market for people able to tolerate and thrive in the working conditions.
- bostonsre 5y ago
  Yea, it is shitty back breaking work where you are micromanaged a ton. They could either raise the pay or they could stop pushing their workers to be miserable machines so much to make the work more tolerable. I hope they do both. This is by far the best news I've heard about Amazon warehouses. It's so incredibly awesome that there might be something that Amazon can't lobby against that could force them to be more nice to their employees.
  - rm445 5y ago
    Preach. I did warehouse work years back in my teens, trundling around with a pallet truck picking orders was moderately enjoyable but it was inherently obvious that if the management had 'raised the temperature' by micromanaging us or demanding more output it would have become horrible. Another thing that was apparent was that some people were just better order-pickers than me. One part of my post above was kinda wondering how Amazon would do if they kept the demanding work, but paid enough to recruit (and treated well enough to retain) physical outliers, a bunch of warehouse athletes. I've visited a car factory, a well-run Japanese marque, where it was mentioned that they had very high initial turnover - some people just couldn't take the pace of the production line - but high longer-term retention. In a sense they must be doing something right.
  - sage76 5y ago
    Normally I would consider this hyperbole, but I am actually worried they will try to legislate some sort of indentured servitude in the guise of something else. I would not put it past them or the lawmakers.
    - rm445 5y ago
      Yow. Amazon prisons, maybe?
      - sage76 5y ago
        Local governments tying up benefits to working at an Amazon warehouse. I really shouldn't be giving out ideas like these.
    - droidist2 5y ago
      Pushing for more immigration?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >It's an unusual twist on clearing the market From my experience in the retail/restaurant/hotel businesses, it is a usual twist. It just gets articles about it because it is Amazon and it lands clicks. These are jobs known to have a lot of turnover and the employers make no effort to reduce turnover, from a combination of their customers opting for cheaper prices at competing businesses with high turnover and employers having (historically) the upper hand in the supply/demand equation for that type labor.
  - rm445 5y ago
    That's a great point - what's true for Amazon workers is just as true for waiters etc. But Amazon is big enough in absolute terms that they could maybe reach some better equilibrium if one exists, plus they're under a lot of scrutiny.
GoodJokes 5y ago
Ah yes “basic economics.” It explains everything very well!
Invictus0 5y ago
Humans aren't a fungible resource. When Amazon fires a worker, or that worker quits because of poor conditions, it's going to be significantly more difficult to convince that person to come back. Amazon sets up its warehouses in low-cost areas where fewer people live. I can certainly imagine that they could run out of people. How many times can you source a 350k person workforce before you exhaust the local supply of willing laborers? Not that many, I imagine.
- newsclues 5y ago
  How many people enter the workforce annually? Workers are renewable for annual exploitation
  - werber 5y ago
    This comment is so bleak it made me think of Amazon going the route of the US military and recruiting in high schools
    - Frost1x 5y ago
      It's what tech companies already try to do recruiting fresh out of college and promoting their specific tech in highschool curriculia as well as just hoping to pad the future workforce. Not that different than the military and its ROTC programs in highschools. Obviously, working at Amazon as an SDE or whatever isn't quite the same as signing up for the military but the recruitment strategy isn't all that different.
      - marcosdumay 5y ago
        The tech industry is grooming people for a highly paying kind of job. That is much less problematic (maybe even not a problem at all) than grooming people for a low paying high demanding job.
    - newsclues 5y ago
      Tech boot camps!
deegles 5y ago
If you treat your workers badly enough so that they never return at any salary, doesn't that mean you can run out of that resource?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by rlpb 5y ago

rm445 5y ago

The interesting wrinkle is that they seem to need to source unusually energetic and resilient people, and instead they're hiring at some lower bar and having enormous turnover. It's an unusual twist on clearing the market - arguably they ought to raise wages, not so much to retain people by paying them enough that they stick it out in hell a bit longer, but so they can clear the market for people able to tolerate and thrive in the working conditions.

bostonsre 5y ago
Yea, it is shitty back breaking work where you are micromanaged a ton. They could either raise the pay or they could stop pushing their workers to be miserable machines so much to make the work more tolerable. I hope they do both. This is by far the best news I've heard about Amazon warehouses. It's so incredibly awesome that there might be something that Amazon can't lobby against that could force them to be more nice to their employees.
- rm445 5y ago
  Preach. I did warehouse work years back in my teens, trundling around with a pallet truck picking orders was moderately enjoyable but it was inherently obvious that if the management had 'raised the temperature' by micromanaging us or demanding more output it would have become horrible. Another thing that was apparent was that some people were just better order-pickers than me. One part of my post above was kinda wondering how Amazon would do if they kept the demanding work, but paid enough to recruit (and treated well enough to retain) physical outliers, a bunch of warehouse athletes. I've visited a car factory, a well-run Japanese marque, where it was mentioned that they had very high initial turnover - some people just couldn't take the pace of the production line - but high longer-term retention. In a sense they must be doing something right.
- sage76 5y ago
  Normally I would consider this hyperbole, but I am actually worried they will try to legislate some sort of indentured servitude in the guise of something else. I would not put it past them or the lawmakers.
  - rm445 5y ago
    Yow. Amazon prisons, maybe?
    - sage76 5y ago
      Local governments tying up benefits to working at an Amazon warehouse. I really shouldn't be giving out ideas like these.
  - droidist2 5y ago
    Pushing for more immigration?
lotsofpulp 5y ago
>It's an unusual twist on clearing the market From my experience in the retail/restaurant/hotel businesses, it is a usual twist. It just gets articles about it because it is Amazon and it lands clicks. These are jobs known to have a lot of turnover and the employers make no effort to reduce turnover, from a combination of their customers opting for cheaper prices at competing businesses with high turnover and employers having (historically) the upper hand in the supply/demand equation for that type labor.
- rm445 5y ago
  That's a great point - what's true for Amazon workers is just as true for waiters etc. But Amazon is big enough in absolute terms that they could maybe reach some better equilibrium if one exists, plus they're under a lot of scrutiny.

GoodJokes 5y ago

Ah yes “basic economics.” It explains everything very well!

Invictus0 5y ago

Humans aren't a fungible resource. When Amazon fires a worker, or that worker quits because of poor conditions, it's going to be significantly more difficult to convince that person to come back. Amazon sets up its warehouses in low-cost areas where fewer people live. I can certainly imagine that they could run out of people. How many times can you source a 350k person workforce before you exhaust the local supply of willing laborers? Not that many, I imagine.

newsclues 5y ago
How many people enter the workforce annually? Workers are renewable for annual exploitation
- werber 5y ago
  This comment is so bleak it made me think of Amazon going the route of the US military and recruiting in high schools
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    It's what tech companies already try to do recruiting fresh out of college and promoting their specific tech in highschool curriculia as well as just hoping to pad the future workforce. Not that different than the military and its ROTC programs in highschools. Obviously, working at Amazon as an SDE or whatever isn't quite the same as signing up for the military but the recruitment strategy isn't all that different.
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      The tech industry is grooming people for a highly paying kind of job. That is much less problematic (maybe even not a problem at all) than grooming people for a low paying high demanding job.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    Tech boot camps!

deegles 5y ago

If you treat your workers badly enough so that they never return at any salary, doesn't that mean you can run out of that resource?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]