Amazon burns through hourly employees, a major New York Times investigation found.
Employee churn is so high that some Amazon execs are reportedly worried about running out of people.
The company has been on a hiring spree to keep up with increased shopping during the pandemic.
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Amazon has been hiring hundreds of thousands of workers for roles in its warehouses, which it calls fulfillment centers, but those employees have been quitting almost as fast as they can be hired, according to a huge report from The New York Times published on Tuesday.
Many of the over 350,000 workers Amazon hired from July to October stayed with the company "just days or weeks," the report said.
Hourly employees had a turnover rate of about 150% every year, data reviewed by The Times indicated. That led some Amazon executives to worry about running out of hirable employees in the US, the report said.
Amazon went on an extended hiring spree in 2020 as it attempted to keep up with a massive spike in demand during coronavirus lockdowns. As Americans increasingly turned to Amazon for things like toiletries and groceries, the company repeatedly touted major hiring pushes.
By May 2021, Amazon was even offering $1,000 signing bonuses to new employees — partially a symptom of hiring issues that employers are facing in a variety of industries, and potentially of Amazon's remarkably high turnover rate.
One former Amazon manager who oversaw human-resources efforts focused on warehouse workers compared the situation with worker churn at Amazon warehouses to the use of fossil fuels. "We keep using them, even though we know we're slowly cooking ourselves," he told The Times.
Amazon representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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DarthGayAgenda on June 15th, 2021 at 22:09 UTC »
I worked for Amazon during the pandemic. I always thought people were over exaggerating how tough it is. I thought, "I used to work five doubles a week as a chef, how hard can four tens be?
Boy was I fucking wrong. They track your time down to the minute. No matter how fast you go, you'll get messages on your scanner telling you to move faster, management constantly stops people to tell them to move faster, then peg people for TOT (time off task, i.e. too much time since you last scanned something). I worked with a woman who had a very bad bathroom emergency, like pants ruined bad They wrote her up and told her she needed to go to Ross around the corner, buy new pants or use PTO she didn't have or take the attendance points. They'd let shelves get so bad, it could take two minutes to find the one item you need all the way in the back of the bin (didn't work at an AR facility).
They also don't really train people. My training consisted of a half bored woman telling me "just go where the scanner tells you, scan the item, pack it, move on." Through eight months I put up with this because money was okay, and it's not like many restaurants were hiring, nor was I eager to go back to that. Then they tell me one day that I didn't get approved for conversion to full time, and my last day would be the following day. I'd also lose my health insurance and my PTO would not be paid out unless I used it then and there. They did the same to the four other remaining people in my training group The Site manager's response was to reapply and collect unemployment (which they blocked anyway), while I waited. I did not go back, I will not go back, and I wholeheartedly understand why people say fuck Amazon.
Fuck Amazon and that alien looking motherfucker.
redgr812 on June 15th, 2021 at 22:07 UTC »
Factory I worked for has run into this exact problem. They paid a little higher than most places so they thought they could treat everyone like shit. They have such a bad reputation now that they are desperate. The only people they can get are the bottom of the barrel people. The quality and productivity have dropped intensely. Last I saw they were offering a $1000 sign on bonus and raised pay slightly. They had a job fair and 3 people showed up. They expect over 100 people at these job fairs.
nickel4asoul on June 15th, 2021 at 21:59 UTC »
When companies stop focusing on 'careers' and start using terms like 'employee life cycle', it's no surprise we're seen as just an expendable and interchangeable resource.