Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 549 posts

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

#231

Post by kungito »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #219
drorco wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the other option similar to what happened after the New York Elevator Operator Strike in 1945 -- the total elimination of a profession. https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/100-years-ago-we-fear... "It wasn't until the middle of the twentieth century that the tipping point came along for the driverless elevator as the result of a strike by the elevator operators' union in New York City in 1945. The str…

"being a temp for future robots" While everyone was predicting that the dirty jobs would get automated, instead its a lot of midlevel jobs are getting automated, but we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash. I am willing to bet my house thay we can automate away the CEO but not the janitor, and it will be hilarious. Management is just analysis of data, we can do that. But the physical works requires de…

Management isn't analysis of data, it is making a decision based on that analysis. A completely different and more complex problem. One could argue that the border between the two is unclear but we have for sure been automatizing the analysis and we are nowhere near removing the managers. Maybe we could say we have removed layers of management though

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

#232

Post by jaredklewis »

gimmeThaBeet wrote: post #189
jaredklewis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument sounds entirely theoretical. Do you have an example of even one small town where average or median wages or benefits were decreased as a result of Amazon? I frequently encounter armchair economists on the Internet making sweeping claims about various, but it is frustrating. It takes basically no effort to think up something plausible. But to take even the first step towards empirically verifying a given…

bloomberg had an article along similar lines late last year. The main hypothesis isn't terribly controversial to me, amazon lowers logistics wages since it pays less than the traditional players, and has sort of the 'business gravity' to immediate move in and be a significant employer. I would not call that suppressing wages on its own. Amazon's argument is that they aren't driving wages down, they are raising them u…

Yea, if the argument is that amazon drives wages lower because Amazon took a skilled job (forklift operator) and turned it into an unskilled job anyone can do, then I agree with that premise.

I just think it is misleading to call that wage suppression as that is not how the term is traditionally used. Operating a loom probably does take less skill than knitting fabric by hand, but that's not wage suppression; that's just creative destruction.

With that definition of wage suppression, pretty much every app, piece of software, or other innovation is suppressing wages.

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

#233

Post by orangegreen »

underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

You can use eBay if you don't want to use Amazon. Plus, you can even sell your stuff on eBay when you're done using it. I've never been an Amazon customer and don't plan on ever being one. I buy most things used too, saving lots of money along the way.

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

#234

Post by WalterBright »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #219
drorco wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the other option similar to what happened after the New York Elevator Operator Strike in 1945 -- the total elimination of a profession. https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/100-years-ago-we-fear... "It wasn't until the middle of the twentieth century that the tipping point came along for the driverless elevator as the result of a strike by the elevator operators' union in New York City in 1945. The str…

"being a temp for future robots" While everyone was predicting that the dirty jobs would get automated, instead its a lot of midlevel jobs are getting automated, but we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash. I am willing to bet my house thay we can automate away the CEO but not the janitor, and it will be hilarious. Management is just analysis of data, we can do that. But the physical works requires de…

> we still don't have a robot that can take out the trash

Because it's hard to justify the $$$ on a robot to automate a job that takes 30 seconds once a week.

Modern people don't realize it, but an awful lot of household drudgery has been automated. I'm old enough to remember life before the microwave. What a marvelous time saver that is! You can even buy one from the thrift store for $10. I remember them being $1000, and that was back when a dollar was worth something.

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

#235

Post by annoyingnoob »

plandis wrote: post #229
annoyingnoob wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is putting in a new warehouse near where I live. They bought up farm land and are converting into a crazy large building that spans the distance between to major roads. Its going to impact traffic on both of those roads, construction already has. We'll probably need a bigger bridge on one of those roads too. It will also have a huge parking lot for the people that will work there. This building is bigger than…

The contractors are not economically benefitting? Some Amazon customers won’t benefit from faster shipping? New employees won’t benefit from the added jobs? The local government won’t benefit from the added tax revenue?

I was commenting on the parent comment about Amazon being 'better'. I'm arguing that its just different than, and in addition to, brick and mortar stores. Not clear that its any 'better' for whatever a measure of 'better' is.

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

#236

Post by cbozeman »

ethbr0 wrote: post #96
underseacables wrote: post #72

I’m torn badly with Amazon. After read The Everything Store, and what has been written all over the place, Jeff Bezos is a massive turd. Employees are horribly treated, wages suppressed, and all sorts of terrible and abusive practices. Then it comes time for me to buy something. I needed a new pair of size 14 sneakers. I drove to Adidas, Footlocker, dicks, and a few other stores but I just couldn’t justify $100 sneak…

Amazon is Amazon because they didn't let size dull their edge. Unfortunately, that cuts both ways. There are a lot of ways to be exploitive, to your and your customers' benefits, when you're a $113 B revenue/quarter company, that simply aren't available when you're a startup. Hell, Walmart pioneered the "How'd you like to sell in our stores?" + "You need to reduce prices, or it'd be a shame if we, your biggest custom…

> If we want a return to competition of yore

I think we're beyond that now. I really do.

We thought we were going to get Weyland-Yutani, but I think we're going to end up with Bezos-Walton instead.

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

#237

Post by hogFeast »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #211
hogFeast wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Margins are the difference between what it cost, and what you earned. But what I would call "profitability" is your actual return versus capital deployed. For example, I know a retailer that earns a 1% margin...terrible? No. They turn over their inventory every week (roughly), so they earn that 1% 56x times a year...that is a very profitable business. Similarly, I can earn a 90% margin but if I can only turn my asset…

>Margins are the difference between what it cost, and what you earned. But what I would call "profitability" is your actual return versus capital deployed. >For example, I know a retailer that earns a 1% margin...terrible? No. They turn over their inventory every week (roughly), so they earn that 1% 56x times a year...that is a very profitable business. Similarly, I can earn a 90% margin but if I can only turn my ass…

Okay, to make this clear: the company that I am talking about earned a 67% return on investment...does this sound high or low level of profitability? Margin tells you nothing, businesses are not valued on margin but by return on capital (of which margin is a component but not the only component).

Also, your points about margin are all wrong...supermarkets control both the price they charge and the price they pay. To give a simpler example (you are confusing lots of things like having low-paid staff) is HFT a profitable business? Margins are the lowest of possibly any business known to man, these firms are usually making significantly under 1% or even 0.01% on each trade...that ignores two things: they don't take an opportunity unless it is profitable (gas stations are another example, margins are low but essentially fixed), and they turn their portfolio over thousands of times per day. If you earn 0.01% that isn't a lot, if you earn 100 000x per day then that is very profitable.

And I explained why retail does. If retailers aren't necessary, why is Amazon so large? Are Chinese factories just choosing to set fire to money? You explaining it does not make it true.

Again, Trader Joe's is a perfect example. Because people care about price does not mean they don't care about anything else. This is the mistake that MBAs at retailers made, they chose to compete at a game they would lose. Again, the reason why consumers perceive their choices in that way is because that is how retailers have chosen to compete. There are lots of other models (you named one, Trader Joe's grew by competing on price AND also choosing to narrow their range significantly...the same model was actually used by dollar stores, they actively chose to run against competitors who tried to carry everything...competing on price does not mean that you have to compete on price alone).

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

#238

Post by WalterBright »

chubot wrote: post #109
TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon pioneered hyperscale logistics efficiencies Actually, I believe that was Walmart as well: >TIMMER: I used to ask my class, I’m talking 1985, “Where is the world’s largest supercomputer?” And the correct answer was, “It’s at the Pentagon.” Okay. “Where is the world’s second largest supercomputer?” Bentonville, Ark. Home of Walmart. They used that computer to track every single item on every single Walmart she…

Ironically Barnes And Noble was also a significant computer user in the 80’s and 90’s. They put a lot of local bookstores out of business with superior inventory, prices, and generally being data driven. Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties!

> Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties!

They're still in business. I browsed one last month. I was amused that one entire rack, 6 shelves, was filled with "Trump is Evil" books. Somebody at that store doesn't like Trump :-)

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

#239

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

taeric wrote: post #202
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the derivative that matters.

This sort of begs the question on how Walmart is growing. Actually, the more I think on this claim, the less it makes sense. The xkcd of how many weddings someone will have the day after their marriage comes to mind. What am I missing?

I can't find a graph of Walmart employees over time, which may not be surprising since it seems that they only directly employ about 50k of the cited 1.6M total.

However, the graphs in this article from 2018 make it fairly clear how the trendlines for Walmart vs. Amazon compare:

https://www.pymnts.com/consumer-insights/2018/walmart-amazon...

Assuming the relationship between those curves is still roughly the same, it seems clear that Amazon's employee growth is likely to take it past Walmart's numbers within a couple of years.

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

#240

Post by WalterBright »

tjr wrote: post #148
chubot wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Barnes And Noble was also a significant computer user in the 80’s and 90’s. They put a lot of local bookstores out of business with superior inventory, prices, and generally being data driven. Then they were one of Amazon’s first casualties!

I frequently shopped at Barnes & Noble ~20 years ago. But they slowly carried less and less that I was interested in, seemingly shifting from a "store for people who like books" to a "store for people to buy gifts for people who like books". At first I placed online orders with them, but once moving to online shopping at all, it was clear that Amazon had even better selection, prices, shipping, etc. But I still enjoy…

I buy books by the bushel from thrift stores. Can't beat those prices!
Post reply on HN