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Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

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Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#141

Post by corrral »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #39
IMTDb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a surplus of management eager to exploit workers. Can also be written "There's a surplus of customer eager to pay the lowest possible price even if that means exploiting workers." As shown by the success of Chinese super low cost brands wether we are talking electronics, fashion etc.

Have you considered that those customers and workers are mostly the same people? There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. See: https://www.workers.org/2021/12/60560/

Exactly—it's entirely infeasible to live in the modern world and keep up with every step of the supply chain for every product and service you use, even if the information were readily available, which it very much is not. It's not even close to being possible.

That's what laws setting floors on how shitty product-safety/work-conditions/worker-pay/et c. can get, are for. Doesn't work so hot in a world where we grant MFN (or whatever it's called now) trade status to authoritarian states with weak worker, consumer, and environmental protections, though.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#142

Post by gruez »

sophacles wrote: post #73
kennywinker wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There's a surplus of customer eager to pay the lowest possible price even if that means exploiting workers." This is just wrong. First, Amazon’s prices and their wages for warehouse workers aren’t directly connected. If they were, amazon wouldn’t have posted 200B in profit in 2021. Given the 1.6mil employees, that’s $125k per employee of profit. Amazon could pay MUCH more, and still hold the same prices. Second, t…

It's simple, just apply modern capitalism. In this case the rule is: Ford was a genius for realizing his workers need to make enough to buy his product. Anyone else who makes that realization is a dirty commie.

>Ford was a genius for realizing his workers need to make enough to buy his product

In what world does it make sense to pay your workers $20k (or whatever), so they can spend $20k on products that your company makes? Factoring in margins you need each dollar paid to your workers to generate $6.66 dollars worth of sales for you for it to break even.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#143

Post by native_samples »

alangibson wrote: post #110
mc32 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those idiots! Everyone and their mother knew that printing money since 2008 was going to blow up one day. Technology and unsubstantiated sectors allowed them to print without repercussions for a while and the administration and them also tried to fool people into believing the inflation was transitory... Reckless idiots. And now wage labor is the one to suffer most. 4TT in spending for BBB? Uhhuh! Even Yellen said it…

It's not the money supply. It's a supply side problem due to Corona shutdowns. All the Fed is about to do is induce a bunch of unemployment.

It's both. The money supply grew enormously to fund the Corona shutdowns. You can see it clearly on a graph of M2.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS

Such a fast increase in such a short amount of time is extremely unusual, perhaps unprecedented. There's nothing even remotely close to that instant increase since the dataset begins at the start of the 1980s.

And then the COVID jump didn't only make a huge increase by itself, but the slope of the graph permanently increased.

It's basic economics that if you do that to the money supply you will get a massive jump in inflation.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#144

Post by corrral »

ramesh31 wrote: post #59
alangibson wrote: post #22

The Fed is about to induce 3 years worth of rising unemployment by their own estimates, so the days of workers not needing to take crap jobs out of desperation will soon be at an end. https://qz.com/2178359/the-fed-predicts-3-years-of-rising-un...

This is the sad reality. The associated wage stabilization is going to be necessary for us to control inflation. SWEs probably don't need worry about remaining employed, but the days of salary wars will be over.

Rising wages are a very small part of cost increases, except for a few things like on-demand quick-response delivery services (food delivery and the like) and even there, fuel costs are a lot of it.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#145

Post by cratermoon »

kennywinker wrote: post #56
IMTDb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a surplus of management eager to exploit workers. Can also be written "There's a surplus of customer eager to pay the lowest possible price even if that means exploiting workers." As shown by the success of Chinese super low cost brands wether we are talking electronics, fashion etc.

> "There's a surplus of customer eager to pay the lowest possible price even if that means exploiting workers." This is just wrong. First, Amazon’s prices and their wages for warehouse workers aren’t directly connected. If they were, amazon wouldn’t have posted 200B in profit in 2021. Given the 1.6mil employees, that’s $125k per employee of profit. Amazon could pay MUCH more, and still hold the same prices. Second, t…

> Amazon’s prices and their wages for warehouse workers aren’t directly connected

If you can say that, then you can say that Amazon’s prices and the taxes it pays on its revenues aren't directly connected.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#146

Post by lotsofpulp »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #76
jaywalk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can only increase pay so much before they have to increase their fees beyond the point people are willing to pay them. As an anecdote, I have completely stopped using DoorDash because they recently increased their fees to a level that I consider to be absurd.

I'm not sure how much food delivery should cost. Though most local restaurants around me seen to do it for free (and tipping isn't expected, in fact it would be a struggle, most drivers drop the food and run now). I'm not naive enough though not to notice that it's all done under the table. Few are paying tax or commercial insurance on their vehicles to do restaurant delivery. I'm pretty sure doing it legitimately co…

There is no “how much it should cost”. If there are a lot of people who do not have better opportunities in life, then it will be lower priced. If people have access to better opportunities than spending time delivering food, then it will be higher priced.

When my family goes to their homes in a developing country, they have drivers and cooks and maids, because there is a huge supply of poorer people willing and able to do those things for a sufficiently low price for my family.

When they return to the US, they have to do all of that themselves, because there is not a huge supply of poorer people willing and able to do those things for a sufficiently low price.

Same thing applies to being able to shop on a Sunday evening, or get a burrito at 11PM, or 2 day delivery. I like seeing fast food stores closed due to insufficient labor, because that means the people that used to have to do those jobs for menial wages now have a better option.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#147

Post by notpachet »

leephillips wrote: post #129
starky wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even do any coding and have gotten contacted by their recruiter for a SWE position in the past month. Seems like their recruiters are resorting to spray and pray when it comes to finding new hires.

That’s nothing. I’ve never programmed a computer, just recently learned how to use an abacus, and been in a coma for three years—yet 43 Amazon recruiters email and call me seven times a day for a software senior management job.

You may be qualified for that, actually.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#148

Post by ezconnect »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

I've always wondered about this, at Amazon and also at Uber/Lyft/DoorDash etc... They seem to burn through people quite fast. Won't they all just run out of people at some point, or will just increasing pay bring enough people back?

You'll be surprised how many people are looking for a job and these companies know the numbers. That's the reason why they dictate the process. In some countries there's just not enough population to fill all the vacancies so the workers dictate the terms. eg South Korea.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#149

Post by etempleton »

When the news broke that Amazon was doubling the salary of corporate employees I mentioned on here how it felt wrong in comparison to what they pay their warehouse workers and drivers and got some backlash on here. A lot of talk about how an engineer provides XXX% more value and supply and demand.

Warehouse jobs are back breaking. I don't think they need to be paid as much as a software engineer, but they should be paid a decent wage and have decent work conditions.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#150

Post by dionian »

youessayyyaway wrote: post #81

I think this article might bury the lede a bit: >Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. People used to work for Amazon warehouses in the 2010s because $15/…

> It's funny to see this dynamic at a time when the federal minimum wage is still stuck at $7.25/hr.

If we raise min wage then they'll just fire people to make up the cost, not sure it's going to help

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