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Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

cnbc.com

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Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#871

Post by exotree »

chapekaloco wrote: post #869

I'm a front line warehouse associate that has been working in one of their facilities for over 3 years. There are parts to this puzzle that the media isn't focusing on and some insights I'd like to offer on their general pay philosophies. I'm not very smart but perhaps I at least have interesting perspective to offer. https://steemit.com/amazon/@chapekaloco/amazon-com-and-the-m... tl;dr, my overall compensation has d…

This is really good writing, and it is fascinating context. Do not sell yourself short. Thank you for your contribution to this thread.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#872

Post by jcims »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #790
genericone wrote: post #327

I suppose there has been some 'breakthrough' in their warehouse automation stack? I suppose in the rest of the USA a doubling of wages will definitely get them through an awkward longshoreman period, "well I'm being paid more unexpectedly, I suppose I can't complain about the robots". Once the robots are well established in operations, they can start to cut labor back some more.

I think there's a much more simple, and clever, explanation. We're looking in the wrong direction. Bloomberg recently ran a story [1] that Amazon is planning on opening up to 3,000 more cashierless 'grab and go' stores by 2021. They are clearly planning on trying to take over physical retail, and this is quite a nasty attack on current players such as WalMart or convenient store type locations. These companies will n…

Have you tried one of the grab and go stores? Took us an hour to get our receipt (presumably after human validation, who probably got tired of my tendency to pull drinks from a few spots back on the shelf).

You're probably right about the strategy, but it feels like there's a good bit of work to be done before they are ready for broader deployment (and even then are likely to be the small convenience style stores). Not sure it really matters if it's +/- a couple of years, doesn't seem like anyone else is thinking this way.

Great prices too!

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#873

Post by developer2 »

skrebbel wrote: post #634
Dylan16807 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you comparing 12 weeks with the entire 2017 revenue? They aren't. They're comparing to revenue per hour. It doesn't matter what period of time you calculate revenue per hour with, you always get the same number.

They're comparing 12 weeks of warehouse work to revenue per hour. Why twelve weeks? It still makes no sense.

12 weeks is (approximately) a business quarter. Corporate finances are most commonly aggregated across a quarterly schedule.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#874

Post by remontoire »

go_blue_13 wrote: post #862
tyingq wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stop a union from being formed. Unions often institute work rules that contractually forbid automation.

Doesn't automation eliminate the need for negotiating with a union?

Only if you can automate everything at once

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#875

Post by loceng »

jyounker wrote: post #758
loceng wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that minimum wage shouldn't be the end of the conversation. With an increase with minimum wage, rent and other costs will go up to match whatever pressure people will as near as sustainable without collapse as possible (indirect costs going up of course), along with other for-profit layers providing for basic necessities also increasing their prices.

People at the bottom of the wage scale getting a few bucks more an hour will not drive up costs. The additional demand is spread across categories of goods. You also assume that businesses are incapable of increasing production (or improving production efficiency) to handle moderate increases in demand.

Of course it does. It's known when there's more money made available (e.g. student loans) then cost goes up (e.g. education tuition).

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#876

Post by rbg246 »

Fellshard wrote: post #865
csdreamer7 wrote: post #220

Bezos felt the Burn! I would still support Bernie's bill. Walmart pays the least of any major retailer. The market power they push onto communities undermines much of the social fabric of America. Small retailers really can't compete with Walmart and a lot of small business owners would feel guilty asking their employees to go on welfare. Charging Walmart for employees who apply to welfare would likely lead to pay in…

Individual companies raising their minimum wage is perfectly reasonable. They know what their bottom line can handle, and any consequences are fairly limited to the company itself and its competitors, for good or ill. An entire national economy raising a minimum wage is pulling yourself into the air by tugging on your bootstraps - futile, and likely to make you keel over instead. There's no alternatives if it fails o…

It has been pretty plain to see that relying on individual companies to raise minimum wages has failed and that companies see no need to increase wages from their myopic perspective.

A country knows what their bottom line can make good decisions as well.

They employ economists and other experts who can assess the effects of raising a minimum wage in a way that an individual company cannot assess.

Countries can also experiment and make decisions on available data and have controls like inflation and other macroeconomic levers to adjust wage levels to prevailing economic conditions.

I think shutting off an entire sector of economics and leaving it purely to the 'free' market is a dangerous suggestion

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#877

Post by RaceWon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #867
RaceWon wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have all been paying attention; which is why a dude who never even won an election as a dog catcher is now President of this still great Nation.

And the dude who lost because of a corrupt DNC just forced the wealthiest company in the world to raise the pay of hundreds of thousands of its employees (while also incentiving Amazon to force wages up for workers at other companies ) with a marketing campaign. Interesting times.

And the non-dog catcher has sent the stock market into the stratosphere.

Yes the DNC was corrupted; yet all we hear on some cable stations is how the non-dog catcher is a Russian plant.

Interesting times indeed.

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#879

Post by Tempest1981 »

megaremote wrote: post #851
chiefalchemist wrote: post #665

This is: - 25% PR - 25% free advertising for their openings (i.e., Amazon pays well) - 25% necessity (we're at full-employment) - and 25% ROI (they've figured less turnover and better quality employees are worth the investment) The question is: how will this effect other companies in the markets where Amazon employs a measurable number of people.

Why do you keep putting a - in front of your percents? Is it a -25% PR hit?

Attempt at a bullet list.

  - indenting by 2 sort of works
  - until the lines get long and don’t wrap
https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

Re: Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees

#880

Post by joh6nn »

ttoinou wrote: post #761
joh6nn wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't twist it to fit my beliefs: i presented a scenario that is actually more expensive than what it would be in reality and showed how even that would not be a substantial increase in cost, even if it was paid for exclusively by increasing the price of products sold. A $1M/mo additional increase in supply costs would be less than .1% of their revenue. It just manages to be .1% at $10M/mo. Given that the $1.2B/yr…

But this company buys products from others company so ultimately an increase in wages will feed through almost all inputs, hence output. Your calculation is wrong

Yes, you already said that. You asked what would happen if their supply chain raised payroll (and therefore prices) by $1M/mo. And I answered that question.
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