back to article Amazon fears it could run out of US warehouse workers by 2024

Jeff Bezos once believed that Amazon's low-skill worker churn was a good thing as a long-term workforce would mean a "march to mediocrity." He may have to eat his words if an internal memo is accurate. First reported by Recode, the company's 2021 research rather bluntly says: "If we continue business as usual, Amazon will …

  1. Duncan Macdonald

    Amazon own goal

    If Amazon followed the simple options of paying a reasonable wage and having good working conditions then it would not have a labor shortage. Employees tend to be more productive when they like the place that they work at instead of felling that they are prisoners on a chain gang.

    Of course Bezos like some other billionaires does not want his workers to feel that they are worth anything.

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: Amazon own goal

      The just situation just has Amazon illustrating it, we see these issues in many other work forces that are treated poorly ... the situation that can be fixed easily by making the work environment decent and the workers happy to get to work everyday.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Version 1.0 - Re: Amazon own goal

        ”But treating employees like human beings, that is madness!" - Montgomery C. Burns

    2. Someone Else Silver badge

      Re: Amazon own goal

      From the article:

      For a workforce that worked a little more than 27 hours a week in 2020, it was said that by increasing this by 10 percent would reduce the need for 118,000 new hires.

      Note that that would take the number of hours to "a little more" than 29.7 hrs a week. Bezos has to be extremely careful there, because once one exceeds that 30hr/week threshold, one is now eligible for benefits, and...well, we can't have that, now can we?

      1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Amazon own goal

        Quote

        "Note that that would take the number of hours to "a little more" than 29.7 hrs a week. Bezos has to be extremely careful there, because once one exceeds that 30hr/week threshold, one is now eligible for benefits, and...well, we can't have that, now can we?"

        So the choice for low paid warehouse workers is $18/hr at amaslavery with no benefits, or wallyworld at $25/hr with benefits.

        Hmmm

        I'm beginning to sense an outline of a problem vis amaslavery's staffing problem

        Its very complex and difficult to pin down but I sense the outline anyway.

        Which means I could possibly see the solution... its not all clear cut and obvious. and very hazy on the details but I sense the outline of a solution..... maybe its................... cut the wages , use more robots and drive the workforce harder so they commit suicide before needing to be fired! there solved it..... I think....

        Fucking dumbasses at amaslavery.... if thats their level of CEO I'd hate to see what the mid level PHBs are like

        1. EricB123 Bronze badge

          Re: Amazon own goal

          Exactly!

    3. DS999 Silver badge

      Disposable

      That's what Amazon thinks of their employees. Use them up and get another! They just didn't figure they could ever run out of people to exploit in a country of 300+ million!

      I wouldn't be shocked if Bezos starts campaigning to create a special class of immigrant visa for warehouse work, based on not being able to hire enough people. Amazon may be running out of citizens willing to work a physically demanding job for much less than competitors like Walmart offer, but there are millions of central Americans who would happily work for even less pay and endure even worse working conditions - because being exploited in the US is still far better than being murdered by drug gangs at home.

      He's probably already got lobbyists working on how to sell this in congress, and PR people trying to figure out how to frame replacing an American work force with immigrants as a good thing.

      I'm Bezos figures whatever they do is a short term thing, as their long term plan remains replacing everyone with robots.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Disposable

        "I wouldn't be shocked if Bezos starts campaigning to create a special class of immigrant visa for warehouse work, based on not being able to hire enough people. Amazon may be running out of citizens willing to work a physically demanding job for much less than competitors like Walmart offer, but there are millions of central Americans who would happily work for even less pay and endure even worse working conditions - because being exploited in the US is still far better than being murdered by drug gangs at home."

        Whatever happened to that "caravan" of people heading for the US? Are they already working for Amazon? Is it time to organise another one?

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Disposable

          The caravans are hyped by Fox News when an election is approaching. You'll hear "the biggest one yet" is coming after Labor Day when they are trying to scare their viewers into voting republican no matter how many crimes it turns out Trump and his cronies committed trying to steal the last election.

          1. Sherrie Ludwig

            Re: Disposable

            I would rather live near immigrants, documented or not, than current Republicans.

    4. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: Amazon own goal

      Their high-staff-turnover model and matching management model is also highly inefficient. It is (intentionally) the opposite of common memes "work smarter not harder" and "do it once, do it right".

      I'm not a warehouse manager, and it seems to have worked ok for them so far, but it's clear that they could get 10% more efficiency by worker training and by control of their internal processes.

      Possibly at the expense of higher wages and slower workers.

    5. Piro Silver badge

      Re: Amazon own goal

      Came to the comments to say this, the obvious. There's no shortage of labour. There's a shortage of labour that want to work as if they were prisoners.

    6. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: Amazon own goal

      Pay more, better benefits, stop treating your workers like shit (and stop obstruction of them wanting to unionise - a symptom of the first 3 things).

      After that your staffing problem pretty much goes away.

    7. SundogUK Silver badge

      Re: Amazon own goal

      "...does not want his workers to feel that they are worth anything."

      Evidence?

  2. devin3782

    Let me be the first to say HA HA HA and good! may that serve you right for your abysmal treatment of your staff

  3. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Amazon's preferred solution: allowing child labour or else, slavery.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      We don't call it slavery. it's a unlimited internship available to our overseas associates in lesser developed regions

      1. EarthDog

        public/private partnership for the reintegration of offenders into the slave, er ummm job, market

        1. Swarthy

          And we have a Winner!

          That is exactly the next step.

    2. codejunky Silver badge

      @Potemkine!

      "Amazon's preferred solution: allowing child labour or else, slavery."

      Of course thats the preferred for the big business. But that is in conflict with actually wanting people to turn up such as enough compensation for them to do the job. Maybe this will force improvements to their compensation or more workers to leave.

    3. lnLog
      Unhappy

      They just have to start using prisons and they can have all the slavery they want...

      1. Snowy Silver badge
        Megaphone

        Could be what they mean by:

        <quote>Another option could be to let Amazon's HR division play a greater role in selecting the location for new warehouses in order to maximize the labor pool. "Our longer-term strategy... is to apply labor forecasts to future site selection," the report read.</quote>

        Just change labor to penal labor.

        From https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/

        The Thirteenth Amendment forbade slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

        By Whitney Benns

        Long term they just want to replace everyone with robots.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Yeah that doesn't work as well as you might think....

          The USA were making military helmets with prison labor, what do you think they found out about the construction quality when they were deployed ?

          1. Snowy Silver badge
            Coat

            Nowhere did I say it was a good idea and if I did I'm saying it now I think prison labor is very bad, it is why I compared it to slavery, which in essence it is.

            As for the military helmets problem, how many military projects have delivered poor quality without the involvement of prison labor?

            1. skeptical i
              Meh

              military equip

              Just remember, soldiers, your equipment was made by the low bidder. Now get out there.

  4. Mike 137 Silver badge

    Maintaining the fear

    The goal, JFK8’s internal guidelines state, “is to create an environment not where we are writing everyone up, but that associates know that we are auditing for T.O.T.”* [New York Times]

    So Jeff believes they really are slaves, to be punished if they fall off the treadmill.

    *T.O.T. is 'time off task'

  5. Someone Else Silver badge

    Erm...huh?

    From the article:

    Some locations will be hit much earlier, with the Phoenix metro area in Arizona expected to exhaust its available labor pool by the end of 2021.

    Uhhh, it's middle 2022, folks...seems we should have figured out by now whether that "expectation" has come to pass, doncahthink?

    Now, if this is text taken more-or-less verbatim from the memo, OK then. But perhaps it is in indication of the prowess of the Bezos organization that they are making "projections" about what will happen a half-year in the past...

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Erm...huh?

      I hit a similar parse error when I first read that, but since this was written in 2021, it was in the future when they wrote it. We don't have all the other memos, so whether they did anything about that prediction to push it off or if they had any problems as predicted are not questions we have the ability to answer except if someone already reported it. I haven't found anything to certainly confirm that they had problems in Phoenix, but they have had problems in several places that have been reported.

    2. EarthDog

      Re: Erm...huh?

      That's AI for you...

    3. Cuddles

      Re: Erm...huh?

      From a couple of lines earlier in the article:

      "the company's 2021 research rather bluntly says"

      It's only been leaked recently, but it's very clear that this report was making projections for the future at the time it was created.

  6. Filippo Silver badge
    Joke

    2024? Oh, no! And after that, what will they have to do? Raise wages? Start treating them decently? Unthinkable!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "2024? Oh, no! And after that, what will they have to do? Raise wages? Start treating them decently? Unthinkable!"

      Well, if they can stave off pay rises for two more years, they'll still only need to bring them up to 1990 levels by then.

  7. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Sacrifice

    You don't understand. You should work for Amazon for free, so that Jeff can build his rocket and so he can sh*t on everyone from space.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    elon to the rescue?

    His android robot will be able to do the work of four human blobs of meat. Bezos will be salivating at the thought of being able to replace all those humans he pays miserly wages to with a robot that does not need any payment other than a timed recharge every so often.

    I hope that Amazon can't do a deal with Lord Muck and he is forced to start paying realistic wages.

    Like Mucky, Baldy Bezos has more money than he could ever hope to spend in a dozen lifetimes. It is long past time that he was made to pay a living wage.

    1. Notas Badoff

      Re: elon to the rescue?

      Robots as a solution? Not this decade, not with those warehouses.

      "Each one of those instances where I was taking too long to find an item counted against me, ..."

      The job requires accuracy, flexibility, and speed picking items from shelves. In a chaotic environment, yes? This requires people now and for the foreseeable future.

      Until they can completely redesign the environment to make it possible to use robots for tasks. Which will require replacing or gutting the existing facilities. Which will cost $$$$$. Oh, and newly designed robots. Which will cost $$$$.

      *This* is what has been missed by commentators. It's cheaper for now to hire cheap people to make miracles. It will *still* be cheaper to hire people even when they're not so cheap.

      If they don't balance the economic equations correctly they won't be able to get people while they still can't get robots. More HA-HAs to come!

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: elon to the rescue?

        >Robots as a solution? Not this decade, not with those warehouses.

        In can be done with even more challenging shopping cart. Although they do burn down occasionally - at least the dead robots don't sue you

      2. DS999 Silver badge

        They don't need Musk

        Amazon has been working on automation in their factories for years, and already have robots in their warehouses. They will slowly shift more tasks onto the robots, I'm sure getting rid of all workers remains their long term plan. If it takes 10 or 15 years to get there, so be it.

        They build new distribution centers all the time, so tailoring them to automation is already happening. I'm sure that's an evolving target, but money is not going to be an obstacle for this. They have a million employees, if they could get even half of them that would save ~ $15 billion a year.

        Besides, Musk's claims pretty much never match reality. His robots won't ever amount to anything, they certainly won't be able to do anything useful. They might be better than Sony's barking dog, but only a little.

        1. Snowy Silver badge
          Terminator

          Re: They don't need Musk

          Then have everything delivered by drone... ----> how it ends.

    2. short a sandwich

      Re: elon to the rescue?

      Robots tend not to buy anything from anyone, more robots will not generate extra profits if no one is buying.

      1. Someone Else Silver badge

        Re: elon to the rescue?

        Thank you, sandwich.

        Most everyone (fatasses specifically included) seem to forget that, as this is a consumer-oriented economy, potential consumers have to have disposable income to consume the various gadgets and geegaws that Amazon wants to foist on society. If a large swath of said society doesn't have sufficient disposable income, they ain't a-gonna be buying Amazon's (or anybody else's) wares.

    3. J. Cook Silver badge

      Re: elon to the rescue?

      Elon's 'robot' was nothing more than an actor in a zenti bodysuit and a funny mask. I sincerely doubt that musk is actively building an android, unless he's bought Boston Dynamics entirely.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Alert

      Re: elon to the rescue?

      In other news, Amazon just demonstrated its fully autonomous warehouse robot, Proteus.

      https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/22/amazon_robot_warehouse/

  9. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

    Interesting, being a former employee is a red flag. Just how many desperate people do they think are out there? When they only make 8 months, it won't take long to run out.

    I do my part though. I don't buy from Amazon anymore.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Interesting, being a former employee is a red flag."

      Considering how Bezos operates, that should not come as a surprise. If people only last 8 months, then they were either fired or quit. They clearly don't have the correct "love of Amazon" attitude :-)

      I wonder just how many Amazon staff have been fired or otherwise "let go" and still use Amazon services? Or is Amazon building a bigger and bigger pool of disgruntled ex-employees who want nothing whatsoever to do with the company ever again?

      1. Kabukiwookie

         Or is Amazon building a bigger and bigger pool of disgruntled ex-employees who want nothing whatsoever to do with the company ever again?

        I sincerely hope so. I can't remember the time I bought anything from Jeff and I will not use any Amazon product or service.

  10. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Lots of Amazon haters....

    I got a good chuckle out of these comments. I don't see anyone offering to pay 10-20% more for Amazon's services so that workers can get a raise.

    Ultimately this won't be a problem. Usage of automation will accelerate, and less headcount will be required.

    Build it fast & rough. Innovate improvements & implement efficiency. Delete the rough spots. This is what Amazon has done over & over.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Lots of Amazon haters....

      You must have missed the mention of Walmart paying $25/hr (over 30% more) than Amazon does. And they work full time so they get benefits, so their overall pay is approximately double Amazon's for 10 hours/week more work (Amazon limits hours to avoid paying benefits)

      I'm sure people working in Walmart's distribution centers have their own complaints, but it sounds like they have things way better than Amazon hence why Amazon is going to have trouble hiring people in the future if things don't change.

      Are Walmart's prices a lot higher than Amazon's? I don't see a whole lot of difference when I've comparison shopped the two, the main difference is Amazon has more variety (but also more scammy crap so its both an advantage and a curse)

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Lots of Amazon haters....

      You don't see them offering to pay more because it doesn't work; Amazon doesn't have the option and they wouldn't use it anyway. Some posts here have explicitly said that they don't buy from Amazon or do so infrequently because of this, which is as close as you can get. Yes, a lot of people like cheap stuff and will either accept or ignore the costs to others, but not everyone is like that. I'll admit that I like Amazon as a retailer because of the variety available, but even so I try to order from other places when possible because I know that the delivery staff will suffer. If there was a place with similar variety and good working conditions, I'd eliminate those few Amazon orders I still place.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: Lots of Amazon haters....

        Yeah, while some might be willing to pay more if Amazon had a checkout option "route through distribution centers where we treat employees well, provide them benefits, and don't fire them the moment they get an on the job injury that prevents them from being a human beast of burden anymore" I don't see how having two parallel sets of distribution centers would work.

        If you don't like how they treat people, your only option is to cancel your Prime membership and quit buying from Amazon. If enough people did that, it would solve their problem of not being able to hire enough workers, since they'd need fewer workers!

  11. ayay

    Too much coke

    The upper echelon of most publicly traded companies need to lay down the coke, stat.

  12. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    Another option could be to let Amazon's HR division play a greater role in ...

    That sentence cannot possibly end well.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      >Another option could be to let Amazon's HR division play a greater role in ...

      staffing the warehouse.

      1, There is an apparently unlimited supply of HR drones

      2, HR drones will do anything you tell them, no matter how stupid the policy or procedure

      3, If they don't like the work, who are they going to complain to ?

      4, If a tornado kills a bunch of HR drones - there is no bad PR

      1. Snowy Silver badge
        Joke

        Like it but the problem is will HR do the any useful work?

        1. chivo243 Silver badge
          Stop

          Like it but the problem is will HR do the any useful work?

          HR always does useful work for the 'company'. I worked at a place that had no HR department when I was hired, that changed, and every HR director that came in the door was a total wanker and a tosser... I'd like to keep my dinner down, so I won't rehash any of the past!

  13. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    If all delivery companies installed Amazon-type cameras in their vehicles, the verges of the rural roads around my house might not be littered with Red Bull cans. Of course if they gave their drivers sane routes and enough time to do them the poor bastards probably wouldn't be necking Red Bull non-stop in the first place.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But if you gave them well paid union jobs and no cameras or invasive electronic protection systems = then they would be on their phones and crash through a station

    2. Snowy Silver badge
      Joke

      Maybe Amazon needs to make their own energy drink they could brand it Amazombie

  14. bazza Silver badge

    Running short of willing labour? Well there is a free market in labour, you just have to go out there and buy it for the price.

    I'd be unsurprised if Amazon's profit is based on pretty slim margins.if so, a small labour cost increase could trash the entire business model.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Your first point is reasonable. As Amazon finds it harder to get employees, then they have to do some to either attract them or replace them sooner with robots.

      Your second point is probably why you got the downvotes. Amazons margins are large enough to make Bezos one of the richest people on Earth and can afford to spunk it away on building his own space programme.

      1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

        The margin isn't on the gift shop, it's on the bit barns.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          True, probably, mostly :-)

          He was worth somewhere north of $4B when he set up Blue Origin, 6 years before AWS went live, but his fortune has increased massively more since AWS. On the other hand, his "gift shop" has also grown massively since then too.

      2. bazza Silver badge

        (I'm pretty sure that someone doesn't know the relationship between margins and profits. Hint: volume of business done...)

        John, Bezos is one small change in margin downwards away from running up a huge loss operating that tat bazaar, and that's the relevant side of Amazon's business; it's the bit that employs warehouse workers. Unless you think that Amazon's warehouse workers are somehow also pedalling a treadmill generating electricity to run the bit barns too.

  15. david 12 Silver badge

    I was wrong

    6 months ago, in response to the question "why do people work for Amazon", I wrote that

    "One of the reasons they continue to get new workers is that it's easy to get a job there."

    "It's possible that the USA will eventually run out of new casual workers who have never worked at Amazon, but unlikely. There are more who leave school every year."

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: I was wrong

      At 150% yearly turnover with a million strong workforce, I doubt there are enough high school graduates graduating each year who 1) aren't going to college and 2) don't have some other path already planned like military service, construction/trades, etc.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not just warehouse...

    With the average tenure at even their "sexy" and supposedly better shops like AWS somewhere around 24 months (balancing loss of sanity with getting at least SOME stock options paid out), they are starting to get desperate for people in the tech space.

    Speaking from first hand experience (got out after 15 months), never has the phrase "hostile work environment" been more apt. At least one former colleague who left at a similar time went to get therapy!

    With word getting around in a very tightly knit tech community, qualified people who can get better elsewhere, especially right now, think twice. Their hiring bonuses have become insane as a result.

    1. Tom 38

      Re: Not just warehouse...

      Yeah, the Amazon bucks seem tempting as an SDE, but they PIP 7% of the workforce automatically each year, whether you hit your targets or not - are you really going to be there 6 years to get all those RSUs? If so, what are those years going to be like - not super-fun, I'd imagine.

  17. EricB123 Bronze badge

    OMG

    For once, the free market system appears to be working!!!

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: OMG

      @EricB123

      "For once, the free market system appears to be working!!!"

      How is it for once? Its not a shock that the free market works, it does, globally. Surviving against all the competing efforts which didnt.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Imagine being THAT guy!

    Bezosbub can shove his cash up his $#&@

  19. trevorde Silver badge

    Alternative headline

    "Amazon to run out of warehouse workers it hasn't p1553d off by 2024"

  20. krakead
    Trollface

    Bezos should talk to the Tyrell Corporation; I hear they may have a solution.

    1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge

      Baaaad idea!

      We don't have the flying cars yet! Need those or how are you going to get around retiring replicants?

  21. Tubz Silver badge

    US of A$$ penal system has plenty of slaves he can exploit and I'm sure prisoners can't unionise ?

    1. Duncan Macdonald

      Unionise - NO - drop and break products YES. If Amazon managed to use prisoner labor then the breakage costs would exceed decent wage costs (after all Amazon can not dock wages or fire them!!)

  22. gernblander

    "the engineer who is suing Amazon for refusing to cover the costs of working from home through the pandemic."

    Why does the Register keep bringing this issue about working from home? It frustrates me because working from home is lower cost for most workers anyway. There are not any commuting costs and fewer clothing costs and food costs because you can have your own refrigerator with cheaper food than paying for lunch when at work.

    1. Excellentsword (Written by Reg staff)

      We didn't bring it up. He did. In court.

    2. Korev Silver badge

      > It frustrates me because working from home is lower cost for most workers anyway.

      Including the room you work in? A dedicated space isn't free.

  23. Trotts36

    Eventually ran out

    Of slaves

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let's make this clear

    There can't be any prosperity without slavery. Don't take my word, just check history books.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes, well, when you can no longer hide the reputation for treating your slave class worse than a farmer does their livestock and with less humanity, people do tend to avoid working for you.

    At first you get people coming on board who can't believe Amazon could be as bad as they have a reputation for. But then they move on and word spreads that yes, "They really are as bad as you've heard; Bob knows - he worked there."

    Amazon: where the countdown to your firing date starts before you even get hired.

  26. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Jeff's not there anymore

    Jeff Bezos stepped down from day to day management of Amazon in July 2021 and now only holds the Executive Chairman position. He also didn't draw a very large salary although I haven't seen (and nobody will see) what his total compensation was. His money comes from all of the kind people that bid the stock to the moon while never reading the financials.

    Word gets around if a large local employer is soul crushing to work for. With operations the size of Amazon's, that's lots of people that aren't happy with what they do warning their friends and acquaintances off. Since warehouse jobs are the type of job that draws from the local community, it's entirely believable that they'd run out of qualified applicants after a period of time. I doubt you'll find many people relocating to take a warehouse job with Amazon.

    I don't see why previous employment at the company is an automatic down check. A person may have left for all sorts of reasons such as family responsibilities or a better job that they just lost and need to find employment again. Is Amazon holding a grudge against them for leaving previously? I can certainly see not rehiring somebody that was fired for cause in the past. Anybody coming back already knows the hellhole they're diving into which might give them some psychological cushioning.

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