Amazon's coronavirus symptoms: Swelling of the profit, large sales deposits, insatiable demand Amazon on Thursday reported $88.9bn in revenue for its second quarter of 2020, a 40 per cent increase year-on-year that exceeded expectations and lifted the web goliath's already buoyant stock in after-hours trading. Analysts, on average, anticipated a figure more like $81.53bn, a sign that they failed to appreciate the online …
If you are in the high risk category for COVID-19, as I am, then the second quarter of 2020 was a perfect market for Amazon. Most of the local stores had primitive procedures in place for contactless in-store shopping, assuming they were even open,, and very high prices for delivery. Thus, Amazon was an easy choice. It was even easier and safer in several cases to buy from Amazon and have them ship to my daughter, than send her things I already had, when they were inexpensive.
That has definitely changed some recently, as more local stores have opened with special hours for high risk individuals, easier online purchasing and safer pickup in store procedures, and better safety procedures when shipping items. However, the ability to shop wihile feeling safe is still beyond some of the smaller local merchants, and a number have closed.
While Amazon definitely asks a lot of some employees (Fulfilment Center work is no joke, though those I have spoken to who worked it all said they actually enjoyed it), it can't be criticized too hard on pay and conditions at all - pay is quite good, especially for those in states with relatively low minimum wages (AMZN has $15 as the minimum right now, and actually applied uplifts of a few dollars during peak periods through the COVID-19 spikes). It's also making very heavy use of remote workers right now and apparently plans to keep on many of those it took on as "Seasonal" when it had to shift gears and lean on WFH rather than traditional CC personnel.
No company is perfect, and AMZN can be criticized on various things, including its aggressive policies toward competitors in a product category, but on the whole, how it pays workers is not one of those things.
P.S. They also are distributing bonuses throughout the company, including all its frontline workers (seasonal as well), for the work they have done during the recent spike in sales.
Based on what? As I said above, AMZN actually treats workers pretty well. I, personally, would not want to work in one of their Fulfilment Centers, but then I would not really want to work in any kind of warehousing role, to be honest.
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