6 ms·

Hmm this is an interesting anecdote to compare against the view ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 )

Hmm this is an interesting anecdote to compare against the view ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 ) that: > In the Earnings Call in July of this year, they said they now employe 950,000 warehouse workers. They're probably over the 1 MM mark right now due to the holidays. Yes, there are plenty of people working there that are overqualified, but that is the beauty of what Amazon is doing. Their onboarding and recruiting for this is incredibly smooth, fast, and will give virtually everyone a chance. I guess if you hire 500,000 people per year and 99% of people have an excellent onboarding process there will be 5,000 bad stories?

nitwit005 5y ago
I doubt it's as low as 1%. If you hire half a million people in a year, it's pretty much guaranteed a lot of the people involved won't know what they're doing. Many of the HR and recruiting people will be new too.
ProjectArcturis 5y ago
That's... not an anecdote? Also, fun math question: if they have 1MM workers, and hire 500k every year, what is their turnover rate?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  The number I heard reported recently was 150 percent a year, but I don’t have a source handy for that claim.
csours 5y ago
If you hire 500,000 people per year, you may be rejecting 500,000 people per year. Where and how you reject them may also be bad stories.
hhmc 5y ago
At what workforce size/turnover do you run into the issue that you might churn through your entire countrywide hiring pool?
- GenerocUsername 5y ago
  New ones born every year?
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  There was a new article a few months ago about Amazon being worried about that very thing. So they're aware of it but corporate America has an ace up their sleeve they can always rely on: work visas. Politicians aren't going to say no when Amazon wants to import guest workers. Amazon done it for the white collar workers for decades, no doubt they'll be quite happy to do it with their blue collar workforce too.
  - ProjectArcturis 5y ago
    I think there would be enormous political pushback by elements of both parties to expanding the guest worker program to unskilled labor.
    - anamax 5y ago
      There is significant political support for effectively open borders, which has the effect of importing unskilled labor without the permit implied by a guest worker program.
      - renewiltord 5y ago
        What in the I-485 are you even talking about? American immigration is hard as fuck for an Indian person making like half a million a year. You think they’re going to try to lobby to get blue collar people in? “Effectively open borders”, my ass.
        5y ago
wraptile 5y ago
On the other hand people rarely share stories like this. "I could not make it through the first day of working at amazon" is something most of us would leave out from our resumes/conversations. What if there are more than "5,000 stories" - There could be 50,000 of these.

nitwit005 5y ago

I doubt it's as low as 1%. If you hire half a million people in a year, it's pretty much guaranteed a lot of the people involved won't know what they're doing. Many of the HR and recruiting people will be new too.

ProjectArcturis 5y ago

That's... not an anecdote? Also, fun math question: if they have 1MM workers, and hire 500k every year, what is their turnover rate?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
germinalphrase 5y ago
The number I heard reported recently was 150 percent a year, but I don’t have a source handy for that claim.

csours 5y ago

If you hire 500,000 people per year, you may be rejecting 500,000 people per year. Where and how you reject them may also be bad stories.

hhmc 5y ago

At what workforce size/turnover do you run into the issue that you might churn through your entire countrywide hiring pool?

GenerocUsername 5y ago
New ones born every year?
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
There was a new article a few months ago about Amazon being worried about that very thing. So they're aware of it but corporate America has an ace up their sleeve they can always rely on: work visas. Politicians aren't going to say no when Amazon wants to import guest workers. Amazon done it for the white collar workers for decades, no doubt they'll be quite happy to do it with their blue collar workforce too.
- ProjectArcturis 5y ago
  I think there would be enormous political pushback by elements of both parties to expanding the guest worker program to unskilled labor.
  - anamax 5y ago
    There is significant political support for effectively open borders, which has the effect of importing unskilled labor without the permit implied by a guest worker program.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      What in the I-485 are you even talking about? American immigration is hard as fuck for an Indian person making like half a million a year. You think they’re going to try to lobby to get blue collar people in? “Effectively open borders”, my ass.
      - 5y ago

wraptile 5y ago

On the other hand people rarely share stories like this. "I could not make it through the first day of working at amazon" is something most of us would leave out from our resumes/conversations. What if there are more than "5,000 stories" - There could be 50,000 of these.