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Par for the course for Amazon: https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-ama

by kibwen 2y ago

Par for the course for Amazon: https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh... Amazon is facing a looming crisis: It could run out of people to hire in its US warehouses by 2024, according to leaked Amazon internal research from mid-2021 that Recode reviewed. [...] “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” the research, which hasn’t previously been reported, says.

tbrownaw 2y ago
2024 is this year. A web search turned up that same prediction, but nothing that looked like it had actually materialized.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Amazon has had to raise warehouse pay [1 [2], definitely screams labor shortage to me. This makes sense considering structural demographics and a shrinking participation rate in the US labor force [3]. I would not have expected Amazon to just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and say "we are all out of workers"; they have to compete like everyone else for a shrinking pool of folks. They have run out of folks to abuse at the previous price point. The wage floor will continue to rise. Even Bank of America is raising wages for tellers [4]. Demographics are destiny, all that jazz. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/amazon-boosts-warehouse-worker-pay-by-at-least-1-50-an-hour https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/amazon-bo... | https://archive.today/5ODb8 https://archive.today/5ODb8 [2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/amazon-wage-increase-new-benefits-for-hourly-us-employees https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/amazon-wage-incre... | https://archive.today/fY28B https://archive.today/fY28B [3] https://www.ebri.org/retirement/content/new-research-of-u.s.-labor-force-participation-and-employment-finds-shrinking-prime-age-worker-population-being-filled-by-older-workers https://www.ebri.org/retirement/content/new-research-of-u.s.... ("A new research report published today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) taking a historical look at labor force participation and employment data in the United States found the prime working age population (25–64 years old) has significantly fallen and is being filled by older workers. At the same time, the labor force participation rate of those ages 65 or older has not reached its pre-pandemic level, while that of the prime working age population has reached that level") [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41500201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41500201 ("Bank of America is pledging to pay its bank tellers and other hourly workers at least $24 per hour starting in October. The company says that this pay raise, from $23 per hour currently, will affect “thousands” of its 212,000 employees. The wage increase will particularly affect tellers and other customer-facing employees, such as call-center workers.") (~10K Boomers retire per day, 3.6M per year; ~1.8M people 55+ die every year in the US, ~5k per day; roughly half of which are in the labor force, so ~2.5k workers actively in a job die each day; ~20% of the population is retired today, in 10 years that'll go to ~30%)
SoftTalker 2y ago
Warehouse wages will rise until it’s more economical to automate the remaining jobs that have not yet been automated. Then there will be no warehouse employees.
- rightdang 2y ago
  [flagged]
dylan604 2y ago
Why do people keep touting warehouse numbers when the RTO conversation comes up? It's not like the warehouse employees are the ones working from home. It seems like such a bizarre thing to bring to the conversation. I get that warehouse employees have a rough go, but it's a totally different conversation. It verges on hand wavy distraction
- kibwen 2y ago
  This subthread is not about RTO, it's about Amazon's general culture of insatiable attrition.

by kibwen 2y ago

tbrownaw 2y ago

2024 is this year. A web search turned up that same prediction, but nothing that looked like it had actually materialized.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Amazon has had to raise warehouse pay [1 [2], definitely screams labor shortage to me. This makes sense considering structural demographics and a shrinking participation rate in the US labor force [3]. I would not have expected Amazon to just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and say "we are all out of workers"; they have to compete like everyone else for a shrinking pool of folks. They have run out of folks to abuse at the previous price point. The wage floor will continue to rise. Even Bank of America is raising wages for tellers [4]. Demographics are destiny, all that jazz. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/amazon-boosts-warehouse-worker-pay-by-at-least-1-50-an-hour https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/amazon-bo... | https://archive.today/5ODb8 https://archive.today/5ODb8 [2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/amazon-wage-increase-new-benefits-for-hourly-us-employees https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/amazon-wage-incre... | https://archive.today/fY28B https://archive.today/fY28B [3] https://www.ebri.org/retirement/content/new-research-of-u.s.-labor-force-participation-and-employment-finds-shrinking-prime-age-worker-population-being-filled-by-older-workers https://www.ebri.org/retirement/content/new-research-of-u.s.... ("A new research report published today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) taking a historical look at labor force participation and employment data in the United States found the prime working age population (25–64 years old) has significantly fallen and is being filled by older workers. At the same time, the labor force participation rate of those ages 65 or older has not reached its pre-pandemic level, while that of the prime working age population has reached that level") [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41500201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41500201 ("Bank of America is pledging to pay its bank tellers and other hourly workers at least $24 per hour starting in October. The company says that this pay raise, from $23 per hour currently, will affect “thousands” of its 212,000 employees. The wage increase will particularly affect tellers and other customer-facing employees, such as call-center workers.") (~10K Boomers retire per day, 3.6M per year; ~1.8M people 55+ die every year in the US, ~5k per day; roughly half of which are in the labor force, so ~2.5k workers actively in a job die each day; ~20% of the population is retired today, in 10 years that'll go to ~30%)

SoftTalker 2y ago

Warehouse wages will rise until it’s more economical to automate the remaining jobs that have not yet been automated. Then there will be no warehouse employees.

rightdang 2y ago
[flagged]

dylan604 2y ago

Why do people keep touting warehouse numbers when the RTO conversation comes up? It's not like the warehouse employees are the ones working from home. It seems like such a bizarre thing to bring to the conversation. I get that warehouse employees have a rough go, but it's a totally different conversation. It verges on hand wavy distraction

kibwen 2y ago
This subthread is not about RTO, it's about Amazon's general culture of insatiable attrition.