What Amazon Does to Poor Cities • Hacker News Board

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#121

Post by andrewjl » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 10:49 PM UTC

TheHegemon wrote: post #96

andrewjl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see this reduction in labor demand is coupled with new lows in the unemployment rate. There's a shortage of labor but employers don't seem to be willing to pay more to incentivize more people to enter the workforce (which is partially reflected in the so called "shadow" unemployment rate, which is higher). An increase in the minimum wage will cause one of two things to happen, both net good IMO: e…

> employers to invest more in capital / automation or cause them to give all current and new employees a raise Or more cynically: fire employees and do more with the remaining employees.

They'll need to make capital investments in order to do that.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#122

Post by krapp » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 10:51 PM UTC

andrewjl wrote: post #120

lotsofpulp wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some work isn't that valuable, and if wages cause the price of that product to rise too much then consumers will forego it. Occupations that pay highly are usually more inelastic in their demand compared to price.

If so, why hasn't that work been automated away by now?

It likely will be eventually, but in many cases automation would cost more than human labor, so the incentive is to just pay humans less and insist they work harder, in order to maximize their value.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#123

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 11:16 PM UTC

garybro wrote: post #23

A common theme I see with these articles is how "grueling" the work is. People need some perspective on what grueling work is. I worked at a UPS hub during college, where I'd load, unload, and sort the contents of trailers. What they do seems pretty easy compared to what I did at UPS. Picking and packing orders is a lot less grueling than unloading trailers full of 60 pound paper boxes, or loading hundreds of package…

Every aspect of the operation is dehumanizing.

From the disposable contractor workforce engineered to prevent unionization, to the Taylorist micromanagement to the lousy pay, its a nasty business. Walmart seems like a benevolent force in comparison.

It’s not better than no job at all. It’s a race to the bottom that is putting people out of work and hurting the wretches working for them.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#124

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 11:22 PM UTC

matchagaucho wrote: post #106

notyourday wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon measures everything. Their incentive compensation plans should be rewarding employees that exceed quota with daily bonuses. I'm guessing you have never worked under the quota system. Guess what happens when one meets a quota? He or she gets a quota increased. Guess what happens when he or she no longer meets a new quota? He or she gets fired. In a quota based system the goal of every employee is to hit the q…

I've developed quota systems. It's not that dire. Under performers receive coaching. "Regression to the mean" occurs when there are no incentives for over-performers. Lazy management will simply raise quota without assessing downside risk (higher turnover, more injury, more sick days). Good management will constantly adjust a balanced quota using a gaussian distribution.

What is the downside risk?

The job is mechanical, most of the grunts are temps and they don’t get sick days. You put you A team in a safer place, crank the volume and purge the rest.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#125

Post by flycaliguy » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 3:12 AM UTC

ocschwar wrote: post #85

clebio wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think physical labor is a big deal -- indeed us computer-and-desk workers think a lot about how to stay active -- and I don't take that to be the crux of the article at all. In fact, I'm surprised that none of the comments here have yet mentioned what I see as the worst, and tangibly different aspect of Amazon warehouse work: the gamification of the tasks. > blue bars on the scanner count down the amount of t…

The biggest problem, I am willing to bet, is that the gamification and the parameter changes are being done by desk jockeys who have never worked the floor at one of these warehouses.

Also, if it’s anything like my experience at call centers, there are some workers who hit all the goals and receive just enough reward from the higher ups to be insufferable. I wouldn’t be surprised if that type of group psychology element is gamed by these work places.

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#126

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 11:15 PM UTC

travbrack wrote: post #38

the time is ripe for the proletariat revolution, comrades.

Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? Your substantive comments have been fine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What Amazon Does to Poor Cities

#127

Post by andrewjl » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #122

andrewjl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, why hasn't that work been automated away by now?

It likely will be eventually, but in many cases automation would cost more than human labor, so the incentive is to just pay humans less and insist they work harder, in order to maximize their value.

There's all sorts of costs associated with the latter approach, you need to expend capital on equipment, methods to monitor progress, these workers need supervision, etc. I guess that explains why many firms that take this approach are so chaotic at the line worker level.

In fact a tech oriented PE firm that buys these businesses out, makes technology investments to improve productivity or eliminate easily automatable labor and then use the savings to scale the business further. (Which would result in net more employment.) I predict we'll see more of these in the coming years.