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> dentistry can you add some detail here? Are the career development classes intended to prepare people for life outside Amazon? Or does Amazon have company dentists?
There is a shortage of dental hygenists in the Seattle area right now....
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I worked harvest and was a janitor in college and still had energy to study. I had no time to do anything else but it was strangely “easy” at the time because I had no distractions.
Fair enough, but not all people have that experience. Things often get harder as you age. Sadly, some people make poor decisions when they are young and course correcting gets harder the older one gets.
I was motivated because I believed my effort would pay off. That may be easier without the experience of age but I don’t think anyone is excluded from that possibility.
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Imagine if everyone learned to code... the coal miners, the fireman and the classy janitor, the cashiers with dignity, the migraine workers... then no one would get paid the big bucks for coding.
Sounds like a good outcome to me. Cheaper software is a good thing.
Amazon revenue in 2018 grew 30% over 2017, but headcount grew only 15%, which is quite an increase in efficiency per employee. That doesn't really make the headlines since there is still overall headcount growth. As they get larger it is harder to grow revenue that fast percentage-wise. If revenue growth rates drop below ~15%, and that rate of efficiency gains continue, then it would lead to net headcount reductions,…
Amazon outsources a ton of work,for ex. To it's 3rd party merchants.
So it's a bit harder to measure productivity.
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Sounds like a good outcome to me. Cheaper software is a good thing.
I have colleagues who copy paste security restrictions to all controllers, disable XSS protections when an ampersand doesn't show, proliferate a tree of possibilities they can't fully account for. We will need a brand new generation of tools to reduce consequences of bad code.
I wonder what the success rate is for their retraining program to turn factory workers into coders. When watching Andrew Yang's Presidential pitch for UBI he said most government retraining programs only have a success rate of 17%.
Alternatively, since those retraining programs were focused on specific industries or occupations in manufacturing in specific regions, maybe it's the range of results in those occupations/regions.
Never heard him say specifically 17 percent (and I have pretty much watched everything Andrew Yang related ;)
I wonder what the success rate is for their retraining program to turn factory workers into coders. When watching Andrew Yang's Presidential pitch for UBI he said most government retraining programs only have a success rate of 17%.
17% strikes me as not bad. Not great, but not awful. People who take jobs that are at eminent risk of automation probably weren't exceptionally diligent in school the first time around. Add in the burdens of adulthood (parenting, bills, etc) and the odds of staying in a retraining program seem bleak. Does anyone have a better success rate?
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17% strikes me as not bad. Not great, but not awful. People who take jobs that are at eminent risk of automation probably weren't exceptionally diligent in school the first time around. Add in the burdens of adulthood (parenting, bills, etc) and the odds of staying in a retraining program seem bleak. Does anyone have a better success rate?
17% sounds good to me. I did co-op at Elections Ontario and the place is just chock full of barely employable people who resist change to the status quo.
I wonder what the success rate is for their retraining program to turn factory workers into coders. When watching Andrew Yang's Presidential pitch for UBI he said most government retraining programs only have a success rate of 17%.
> I wonder what the success rate is for their retraining program to turn factory workers into coders. Probably about 0% for their warehouse workers: they're so exhausted by the end of their shifts that they won't have the energy to learn, and their most at risk of losing their jobs to automation. This is a feel-good announcement that will likely do little good without other management changes that Amazon is probably…
I work at one of those warehouses and people do try to put in the effort to learn - unfortunately, Amazon only offers Associates' Degree level education and (judging from public complaints) all but forces people to work night shifts and extra hours to keep their numbers up, and doesn't actually teach the classes well, because of course their first, primary and overriding interest is in having their warehouse employees meet their quotas and fulfill business needs.
Which is why I recently just suggested that people just take Udemy courses and stay away from Amazon's offers altogether.
I wonder what the success rate is for their retraining program to turn factory workers into coders. When watching Andrew Yang's Presidential pitch for UBI he said most government retraining programs only have a success rate of 17%.
My job takes me to many Amazon FCs. The job families that we currently offer through career development classes are usually things like CDL, operations management, dentistry, EMT, process engineering, mechanical tech, etc. It is really a grab bag of what is most highly requested by the diverse working cohort at each FC. Code as HN would think of it is not as common, but associates becoming IT or facilities technician…
And I work at a FC near the second biggest tech hub in the US... it would be easy pickings for Amazon (pun intended) but it seems like no dice. But if I want a second associates' degree and to restart my career as a truck driver or paralegal at 40, I can do that.