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1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

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Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#51
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably has to do with precise definitions of "non farm", "farmer", "farming" and "agricultural". BLS has this showing 2.3 million people working in agriculture: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat15.htm And this showing there are 900,000 jobs for "Agricultural worker" https://www.bls.gov/ooh/farming-fishing-and-forestry/mobile/... Clearly the terms "Employed persons in agriculture industries" and "agricultural workers"…

If you expand the "What Agricultural Workers Do" section, it says: > Agricultural workers maintain crops and tend livestock. They perform physical labor and operate machinery under the supervision of farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers. According to https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/farmers-ranchers-and-othe... , there are 952,000 jobs as "agricultural managers," which isn't how I'd naively expect thi…

If agricultural workers are people working under the guidance of other folks then managers may also include the "self-managed" i.e. any independent farmers including those that rely heavily on automation. There's also probably a fair chance that subcontracting can mess this up with multiple farm hands hired onto a farm all counting as agricultural managers.

It feels like agricultural worker is actually quite narrowly defined to only be unskilled people specifically requiring oversight and management.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#52

In the spirit of the FSF's "Right to Read"[1] dystopia story, I present "Fully Automated Amazon Communism" : 1. Everyone works at Amazon 2. Amazon has vertically integrated into every conceivable industry. 3. Everyone gets paid in Amazon gift cards. 4. Amazon automatically delivers to your home everything you need to live your life without you having to ask. It knows what to order based on an AI model of everything y…

Kind of reminds me of the corpo start in cyberpunk 2077

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#54
post #14
post #3

I wonder what the largest private employers as % of total labor force have been throughout history. We currently have a labor force of ~160 million people and Walmart employs "1 out of every 72 American workers" or ~1.3%

Wasn't basically everyone an employee of one "company" in communist countries?

[deleted]

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#56
post #14
post #3

I wonder what the largest private employers as % of total labor force have been throughout history. We currently have a labor force of ~160 million people and Walmart employs "1 out of every 72 American workers" or ~1.3%

Wasn't basically everyone an employee of one "company" in communist countries?

It depends on which country, there were multiple attempts, there is no "one" communism, but generally "NO".

The USSR after the revolution was literally called the Soviet Union. A "soviet" is a council elected by workers. Basically workers would own the means of production through soviets, and they would join together as a larger governing body. Unfortunately, the autocrats and populists took control and killed everyone; or as in Russia, illness also helped kill the vast majority of able-bodied people which really screwed their production. But I'm WAY oversimplifying.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#58

> The US has a population of 261 million and an employed non-farm workforce of 145 million, per the BLS. >According to the most recent US employment report, there are 145.8 million nonfarm payroll workers out of a total population of 332 million. ignoring the mismatching "Populations". (261 million seems to be "Civilian noninstitutional population") This [0] seems to say there are 152,283,000 employed in US. are ther…

There are 328 million according to the Census

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#59
That makes Amazon #3, after the federal government and Walmart:

     Entity        US Employees
  1. US Government         2.7M
  2. Walmart               1.6M
  3. Amazon                1.0M
If Amazon continues to grow at current rates, it will surpass Walmart's figure within 2 years.

Looking at these figures, it's evident that these three entities are far larger, wealthier, more connected, and likely more powerful than the vast majority of US cities, the vast majority of small countries in the world, and maybe even a few smaller US states.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#60

So 0.65%? Not insignificant, but using “1 out of every 153” seems intentionally worded to sound more outsized and draw eyes. I wish HN posters would stop encouraging this lowbrow form of journalism. For an educated community, people sure do love their cheap clickbait headlines here.

I think 0.65 of the country sounds similar in scale to me, and I would also naturally be curious as to what that means in terms of "how many people out of X"
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