Last year, only a third of Amazon’s new hires stayed with the company for more than 90 days before quitting, being fired, or getting laid off
The report, which is based off internal research papers, slide decks, and spreadsheets from Amazon, claims that workers are twice as likely to leave by choice, rather than because they were laid off or fired. It also says that the issue is widespread throughout the company, not just with warehouse workers; from entry level roles all the way up to vice presidents, the lowest attrition rate for one of the company’s 10 tiers of employees was almost 70 percent, with the highest reaching a staggering 81.3 percent.
As an older person, I have been in a constant state of disbelief that my peers and elders can’t make the connection between capitalism and this corporate behavior towards us for all my adult life. Like 8 billion dollars couldn’t be paid out instead for extra staff and better work conditions.
Like somehow this is the result of some funny coincidence that all these rich business owners just have poor character. Like somewhere there’s someone at the top of capitalist business that’s a sweet, kind and fair person…but they’ve just never seen them.
Meanwhile they learn that there were laws put in place to prevent child labor, like it was some oopsie that was casually rectified and not the principle driving force of capitalism.
It has always staggered my common sense that Americans can deny that this is Capitalism. That’s it. That’s what it is. How many times do you have to see it right in front of your face at work or the store or anywhere. There it is.
Meanwhile they learn that there were laws put in place to prevent child labor, like it was some oopsie that was casually rectified and not the principle driving force of capitalism.
People learn about that and the eight hour workday and breaks and osha but they are never taught that these things came about because union workers were literally fighting, with guns, to the death, to make it all happen
I think of billionaires more as “Utilitarian Demons” than Rocko’s basilisks. The basilisk is vengeful and wants everyone opposed to it to suffer and die. Bezos and his group simply don’t care if the poor live or die, unless it directly affects their wealth, making them less terrifying but more insidious - a banal evil.
So amazon is absolutley going to start using prison labour in the next few years right? When can we expect bezos to start a private prison/amazon warehouse?
Let me look at this through a lib lens:
Soon, Amazon will partner with the government to help rehabilitate inmates through on-the-job training programs
This is absolutely coming. I remember last year seeing some ghoul CEO of a background check company espousing hiring formerly incarcerated folks as a means to “address the hiring crisis”. Which of course, between the lines, means “untapped labor pool that can further depress wages”.
Why wait until they’re formerly incarcerated? :porky-happy:
Amazon’s new warehouse employee training exec used to manage private prisons https://www.popsci.com/technology/amazons-exec-private-prisons/
How am I not surprised my ghoulish takes are already part of bezos’ plans
that might be more difficult for them as they are a shipping company and prisons tend to be in the middle of nowhere
there are real logistical issues involved with that
I honestly though this is their hiring philosophy keep rotating ppl in and out. That way no one needs a raise, or benefits.
Wouldn’t you eventually just burn through your entire labor pool? Like how long would that even be sustainable?
I think at the very least they’ve burned though their “goodwill” so to speak, at least anecdotally amongst people in warehousing in my area. I’ve worked in warehouses for a while, Amazon opened a warehouse close to where I live a few years ago. The opinion pretty quickly went from “Can’t wait till Amazon opens up here so we can finally get paid” to “It’s good you just gotta keep your pace up” to “FUCK AMAZON AND FUCK BEZOS FOREVER”
Wouldn’t you eventually just burn through your entire labor pool? Like how long would that even be sustainable?
Yes, this is already becoming an issue for them. There’s leaked company documents discussing it
They use some algorithmic tracking that makes working there completely unsustainable. Anybody that stays there for too long is probably addicted to painkillers - A BeLabored podcast episode talked about how an employee couldn’t use tylenol because she developed a tolerance.
I’ve worked in construction for years and Amazon was the first job where I felt obligated to bring some kind of painkiller with me. They even dispense packs of them in the employee supplies vending machines.
They even dispense packs of them in the employee supplies vending machines
what the fuck
It is the philosophy, I was at a warehouse for about a year and there were I believe two people left who started around the same time as me, if I had to guess 10% stay past 6 months, 5% past a year. Unless you live in a low cost of living area where other businesses are paying federal minimum wage there’s not much keeping anyone there. They try dangling a carrot saying you could make assistant manager within a year but they’re much more likely to hire people with 4 year degrees than promote from within, all of the assistant managers had been there for a few years minimum waiting for a management position to open up, which start at like 21/hr.
In FY 2021, the turnover rate — excluding TNT Express employees and U.S.-based FedEx Supply Chain employees — was 23% for full-time workers and 183% for part-time workers, primarily package handlers.
United Parcel Service Inc. UPS disclosed Tuesday that its workforce was reduced by about 9,000 employees in 2021,
I’m guessing it’s a similar turnover rate to fedex for ups…
Simply put, during the past two years of covid, the workload and workflow increased to absurd levels that the corporate infrastructure wasn’t prepared to handle, with most if not all the companies doing little to nothing to prepare for the influx of online orders. So quite literally everyone that’s involved in the process of moving shit from point A to B have been overworked and drastically underpaid in relation to the output that’s been expected of them.
I’ve even heard that the courier companies have even been forced to force their office workers and managerial staff do deliveries too in order to keep the system profitable. I’ve heard they’ve also been burning out cargo plane pilots and desperately need more flight crews. I’ve also heard that delivery and cargo drivers have been hitting their max driving hours consistently to the point that I’ve heard that they’re also getting burned out or are suffering stress/exhaustion injuries to thr point of causing vehicular accidents on their routes.