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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 en
by 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 agoYea, 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 agoPreach. 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 agoNormally 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.
- 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 agoThat'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.