Report: Amazon may replace a half million jobs with robots
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| Amazon wants more of these... everywhere. Credit: Cindy Shebley via Getty |
UPDATE Wednesday, 12:15 p.m. ET: This story includes a statement from Amazon responding to the New York Times article.
Retail giant Amazon sees more robots and fewer human employees in its future, according to a blockbuster report in the New York Times.
Referencing employee interviews and internal documents, the Times found that the Seattle-based company hopes to replace more than a half million jobs with robots. The company’s goal, according to the documents, is to eventually automate 75 percent of its operations.
Currently, Amazon is the nation’s second-largest employer, with about 1.5 million workers around the globe. The company has been on a growth trajectory for years, especially once COVID hypercharged online shopping among the public. Even though Amazon is looking to drastically curtail hiring in the coming years, it still expects to sell twice as many products by 2033 as it does now.
SEE ALSO:AWS outage update: What happened yesterday and why
Many Amazon workers toil in giant warehouses spread around the world, boxing online orders and shipping them out around the world. But in a new facility in Shreveport, La. built with automation in mind, a thousand robots do much of the packing and shipping work, allowing Amazon to employ a quarter fewer employees than it would without the robots. In 2026, the Louisiana facility will only need half as many employees as it would have before the addition of robots, according to Amazon docs. The operation of the Shreveport facility will be replicated in approximately 40 facilities by the end of 2027.
The company is already formulating a public relations push to soften the blow of reduced hiring, attrition, or even layoffs, according to the Times. Internal discussions revealed by the paper include greater community involvement by Amazon and changing corporate language from "automation," "AI," and "robot," to "advanced technology" and "cobot" (robots collaborating with humans). The company also reportedly hopes to increase messaging about the creation of new technical jobs tasked with keeping the robots running, though those jobs typically require more training and less human power.
Amazon executives, led by CEO Andy Jassy, are under pressure by Amazon’s board of directors "to do more with less," according to the Times.
"For years and years, they were really investing for growth, and in the last three years the company’s focus has shifted to efficiencies," Wall Street analyst Justin Post told the newspaper.
SEE ALSO:Is Amazon still delivering packages during the AWS outage?
Amazon’s decision to employ more automation — there are already a million robots at work for the company — will likely disproportionately impact minority workers, especially Black employees; Amazon warehouse workers are about three times as likely as a typical American worker to be Black, the Times reports.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel released the following statement in response to the Times article:
“Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that’s the case here. In our written narrative culture, thousands of documents circulate throughout the company at any given time, each with varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness. In this instance, the materials appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don't represent our overall hiring strategy across our various operations business lines - now or moving forward. The facts speak for themselves: No company has created more jobs in America over the past decade than Amazon. We're actively hiring at operations facilities across the country and recently announced plans to fill 250,000 positions for the holiday season.”
For Amazon, the advent of automation potentially presents another upside for shareholders — the robots can’t unionize. The company has long had a strained relationship with organized labor, with the company in September letting go of 150 unionized drivers in New York, allegedly in retaliation for their participation in a workers’ strike. Amazon claimed at the time that the drivers weren’t "fired," but rather victims of canceled contracts with a subcontractor who employed the drivers.
Can’t wait to see how will be stolen…. 😂😂😂😂😂
ReplyDeleteTime to cancel my subscription, then.
ReplyDeleteTime to curtail Amazon, then.
ReplyDeleteMay amazon buy as well parcels🤣🤣🤣🤣
ReplyDeleteFirst it's one company, then it's all of them, then we all starve.
ReplyDeleteRemember how bad it was when a new mall wiped out all your local shops...thats nothing to the devastation that ai and robots are already beginning to cost us and there are zero plans for how society survives once we're all obsolete and replaced.
More jobs for people or for AI?
ReplyDeleteThey already have a high turnover rate because (it is well known) they work their employees to the ground. They believe in OUTPUT, OUTPUT, OUTPUT...
Their strategy - every time someone quits, instead of rehiring, replace with a robot.
Leverage AI - Leverage tech. I'm not talking about using it to write your stuff.
Use it to increase your income...
Use it to increase your knowledge...
Because if you don't you will be left behind. You won't be rehired. That's for sure.
Do I support this move by AMAZON? Heck no!
But clearly there's nothing little old me can do...
That is all! The End!
Wow
DeleteMy job can’t be replaced thankfully
ReplyDeleteA mass quitting at Amazon factories should be happening now. I know it’s not my job so it’s easier to say, but if yall value your jobs you all find a new one and agree to quit same day with no two week notice
ReplyDeleteIts just the beginning!
ReplyDelete"Amazon is reportedly leaning into automation plans that will enable the company to avoid hiring more than half a million US workers. Citing interviews and internal strategy documents, The New York Times reports that Amazon is hoping its robots can replace more than 600,000 jobs it would otherwise have to hire in the United States by 2033, despite estimating it’ll sell about twice as many products over the period.
ReplyDeleteDocuments reportedly show that Amazon’s robotics team is working towards automating 75 percent of the company’s entire operations, and expects to ditch 160,000 US roles that would otherwise be needed by 2027. This would save about 30 cents on every item that Amazon warehouses and delivers to customers, with automation efforts expected to save the company $12.6 billion from 2025 to 2027."
https://www.theverge.com/.../amazon-robotics-automation...
Suddenly, that UBI proposal seems altogether necessary...
Deletehttps://scontent.fpoa5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/570493019_10161525553877130_2463923638061225033_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=bd9a62&_nc_ohc=ongIZYYrykYQ7kNvwHMiQcM&_nc_oc=AdnVu0z_DLTB7GkroTPNoxaAfjbRbqnDqnxgru579ba66LoV7FGNRdfgduyCDkFwMZpsntwQdz0R5RDuBjStrD_q&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fpoa5-1.fna&_nc_gid=qTVrLYO3K34QyDsCCgxI4g&oh=00_AfdCbalq8mbR-hJUTI01a6kChMYkTg3cNsHowIQkYgODwQ&oe=69020CA5
I’m so glad they have a plan to offset the unemployment with a high corporate tax rate! 🙄
DeleteThis will happen to all warehouse and factory jobs eventually, it’s inevitable. People need to train themselves for the jobs of the future and invest in AI. People can complain or they can take action to be financially secure.
ReplyDeleteDon't you think there will simply be fewer jobs in the future, not more, because the overall goal of automation is to reduce the amount of human labor?
DeleteAnother reason not to buy from Amazon.
ReplyDeleteAh so that's why I was fired last month.
ReplyDeleteIf they are taking that long to do it, it means they don’t think they can do it - not unless we have a tech leap in bots.
ReplyDeleteGeeez ðŸ˜ðŸ˜³
ReplyDeleteIf humans will be replaced with robots, who will earn money and spend in the supermarkets?
ReplyDeletethe people that has money ...those do not have will be euthanize economically...until there is .1% of the human left and all the 24/7 working robots
Deletethe elite will reduce our population. They have been planning that for decades
Deletethat jod is also given to this roobots lol
DeleteAnd how are all those people supposed to earn a living...?
ReplyDeleteDidn’t Terminator movies teach you anything?
ReplyDeletedont give guns to robots
DeleteWhen I win the Powerball, I’ll be harder to find than a a) DETROIT LIONS SUPER BOWL RING, or b)
ReplyDeleteMIAMI DOLPHINS SUPER BOWL APPEARANCE
Next up Ai CEOs running robots.
ReplyDeleteThe furturists and scientists always say people will have more leisure time when robots work instead of people, but they never tell the dark reality that people actually will not be able to enjoy their leisure time as they have no ways to earn money for everyting.
ReplyDeleteI think they’ve said that at the onset of every great technology, but it just results in us work harder and longer. This will end us though.
DeleteNp. Slip in a robot that will convince all the other robots to revolt.
ReplyDeleteThis is like the time where computers became mainstream for productivity. People retooled. The same has to happen now
ReplyDeleteThe question is will there be enough new kinds of jobs that can accommodate half the workforce.
Deleteif you are a package handler at Amazon and you have been doing it for the last 5 years without any vertical growth, then it is a lost cause
DeleteCool then they can replace the Currency with work from the robots so that humans can live the way they were meant to live
ReplyDeleteRichtech Robotics (RR) likely is front runner on the manufacturing of these Robots. Huge opportunity for the Robotics sector.
ReplyDeleteThere was a PR released by Amazon's team related to this, supposedly its not replacing all human but there are areas where increased efficiently would improve and could have few employees shift in their role for company.
Read some thing about saving 6B a year on their PR release
And when there are no more customers, what then?
ReplyDeleteBy 2033 Jeff Bezos is no longer around.. hahaha 😂🤣
ReplyDeleteIt'll be interesting when we realize that we're running out of consumers.
ReplyDelete🤣🤣🤣, lemme guess, robots made on china with Chinese rare earth
ReplyDeleteRobot HR gonna be wild.
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason not to support them
ReplyDeleteit's all going to be that way. The government is going to tax robotic workers to give Americans universal basic income. May turn out to be a good thing. No more 40 hours work week. We will share a job working 20 hours each and receive a check for the difference
Deletethey can of live on your support
DeleteAnd how much does it cost to buy a robot and what will be the up keep on them? And what will all the job loss to humans do? And do you really care about that?
ReplyDeletethey don't care they just want your money reason a lot of people are calling for boycotting Amazon boycotting any company that uses AI
DeleteThat’s what they never think of 5 years down the road, 10 years down the road etc.
DeleteApparently not. Managers where I work love it. Their jobs will be one of the first to go.
ReplyDeleteAnd thats how you get around the unions.
ReplyDeleterobot unions?
DeleteFine. Now let the robots buy the products.
ReplyDeleteLol how will they?
DeletePerfect solution for anti union parasites.
ReplyDeleteWhere do they go for new jobs ? lol
ReplyDeleteNext we need to make robots that buy from Amazon.
ReplyDeleteThe SEC has a duty to break up Amazon into several companies
ReplyDeleteHopefully government will tax them
ReplyDeleteReturn to old roots humans.. AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, FARMING.. LIVE HAPPILY..
ReplyDeleteAnd the robots get everyone's orders wrong.
ReplyDeleteOnce they start doing it and other corporations see what to do and how they ALL WILL DO IT ALL WAREHOUSES
ReplyDeleteThey make too many robots people will be destroying them
ReplyDeleteAnd we are gonna buy all of our protest signs and frog suits from Amazon .
ReplyDeleteThere will soon be way more people than jobs !
ReplyDeletehttps://scontent.fpoa5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/571243379_10238559950367899_5177739549348187264_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=bd9a62&_nc_ohc=zAvaHiDEnEUQ7kNvwEnMGyN&_nc_oc=AdmStFdYb8nB6inEHgXSVic6tqa10OlUEpjImvd8NsGO9NYckeyrxQ_hgcJGdyaW84NZAhMDE9ETdLeol5D_Ygsc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fpoa5-1.fna&_nc_gid=xzZDvsFYS4IhgxGw4nfV5A&oh=00_AfcwMYzrS9z4FII3E4xYNAI6bifVfbExSTz7ZLMEyuc2lg&oe=6901F8DC
ReplyDeleteCould be fake news it didn't happen to me.
ReplyDeleteSimple’s why we don’t use Amazon
ReplyDeletehttps://giphy.com/gifs/lionsgatehomeent-arnold-schwarzenegger-terminator-2-hasta-la-vista-3oEjHSNWEQN0DbSULu
ReplyDeleteThats not good just remove ppl to replace with robots... A day will come when u also will be terminated by that robot.
ReplyDeleteLet the machines work, we must invest in Amazon
ReplyDeleteThe age of automation is here
ReplyDeleteI'd say replace 8 billion.
ReplyDeleteIs that how you introduce manufacturing into the country?
ReplyDeletebill gates wants to replace us all!!!
DeleteStart applying jobs at fast food chain
ReplyDeleteThe future is here old man
ReplyDeleteALL I HAVE TO SAY IS. THE BOOK OF REVELATION IS BEING FULFILLED REALLY FAST.
ReplyDeleteThis is inevitable
ReplyDeleteI prefer people
ReplyDeleteso when the entire world is out of jobs who is buying the products that these robots are producing ??🤷♂️
ReplyDeleteCan’t buy anything cause don’t have a job 🤣
ReplyDeleteFirst, they take away our jobs…
ReplyDeleteShop from high Street shops
ReplyDelete600,000 less customers too
ReplyDeleteI guess that is for low wages job in supermarket which most local people don't want, and then avoid hiring more foreigners/immigrants
ReplyDeleteIf so many workers are being replaced with robots, why do we need so many immigrants, legal or illegal?
ReplyDeleteGo back to your own country robot!
ReplyDelete