A internal study conducted at Amazon shows that the American giant could run out of workers in its warehouses Americans by 2024. Jeff Bezos has always bet on the renewal of employees in warehouses, to avoid “to sink into mediocrity”. If this study is true, he could bite his fingers.
A labor crisis from 2024 at Amazon?
The report is very clear: if the company maintains its usual management practices, the labor supply available in the United States risks being exhausted as early as 2024. Certain regions of the country could even be affected before that date. It is for example the case of Phoenix in Arizonawhich would have already exhausted “its available labor pool” since late 2021. California’s Inland Empire region could reach breaking point by the end of 2022, according to the study. The problem is simple: on average, a warehouse worker only stays at Amazon for eight months.
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The annual attrition rate is around 150%, more than double that of the comparable retail and logistics sectors in the United States. The report highlights the very low hourly rate applied at Amazon. While companies like Walmart offer experienced warehouse staff $25 an hour, at Amazon we do not exceed 18 dollars an hour. A choice that the company could well pay dearly. This is without counting on the infamous working conditions policy applied by Amazon…
Unacceptable working conditions
There are a bunch of examples on this topic. Last year warehouse workers were killed when a tornado hit a warehouse. Amazon had refused to let them go home. Now the company is accused of obstructing the investigation into the warehouse collapse. There are also the 140,000 British delivery drivers who have been compensated because cameras with artificial intelligence were installed in their vans to monitor them. These are only very recent examples, which explain why some warehouses have a union.
Jose Pagan, a 35-year-old former warehouse worker in Bronx, New York, told that he was fired after taking two days off to have an infected tooth removed. He had accumulated enough vacation time to cover this absence, but Amazon would not use it because the employee had not anticipated his request in advance. His badge soon stopped working.
However, Amazon is aware that paying its workers more is a good idea. The study shows that the labor pool increases by 7% for each dollar added to wages. Raising the hourly rate by $1.50 could be enough to postpone the 2024 crisis by three years…