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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

#171
post #44

This is specifically in reference to warehouse workers, not the tech side of things. Though I've heard from many recently ex-Amazon engineers that they're having real trouble recruiting engineers now too

From what I have heard, they are a terrible company to work for (even for SWE). I could be wrong but that reputation alone has made me ignore most job postings and recruiters reaching out. Even if they could offer me a 20+% pay rise.

I worked at Amazon 8 years and it is very manager and team dependent on what your experience is. I got to work on S3 and Alexa, and have no regrets. I learned so much, had a bunch of fun and worked with really smart people. Got paid well too.

Downside, there was no free snacks. shrug

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

#172
post #140

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…

No idea where you are getting your numbers, but Amazon did not post $200B in profit in 2021. The list of top five annual profit (adjusted to current USD) by any company ever is: 1. Saudi Aramco (2018) - $120B 2. Saudi Aramco (2021) - $115B 3. Vodafone (2014) - $113B 4. Fannie Mae (2013) - $98B 5. Apple (2021) - $95B Perhaps you are thinking about revenue?

> Amazon annual gross profit for 2021 was $197.478B, a 29.28% increase from 2020.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/gross-...

Gross profits.

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

#173

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...

ah but it will control inflation. So when the bank repossesses your home you can rest easy knowing a gallon of milk is 7 cents cheaper.

> when the bank repossesses your home

Most homeowners have been in their homes for a while, refinanced, and have benefited from a fixed payment for their home while wages have risen with inflation.

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

#174

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…

AMZN did not have $200B profit in 2021. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/net-in...

Amazon annual gross profit for 2021 was $197.478B, a 29.28% increase from 2020.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/gross-...

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The associated wage stabilization is going to be necessary for us to control inflation. It won't. Everyone involved in business dealing with physical goods knows it's a supply side problem. Fiscal policy will do little to control inflation at this time. The Fed of course knows this.

> Fiscal policy will do little to control inflation at this time

The Fed has no control over fiscal policy. You mean monetary?

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

#176
post #77

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...

We’re also living in a volatile time. It might end up meaning a potential civil war is a lot more likely. Desperation creates extremism. I don’t think the US is prepared for the monster it may unleash.

Have you seen how obese we are? Only civil war happening will be for the last packet of Schezuan Sauce at Mcdonalds.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that as tribalistic/negative language at all. However, I do see it in the unqualified assertion that left-wing people want "more mass immigration", which seems misleading and tangential to their actual desires (which seem to be more about treating immigrants better and allowing more cases of legitimate asylum seeking, rather than actively seeking "more" and "massive" immigration in the general case). Even…

I don't see that as tribalistic/negative language at all. Left wing is a tribe. Right wing is a tribe. Just like all the sportsball teams are tribes. Politics would work better if politicians, and their followers, worked for people, rather than their tribes.

Even accepting that "left wing is a tribe", summarizing the views of a tribe (especially in relatively objective terms) isn't the same as engaging in tribalism.

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

#178

There's no shortage of workers, there's a shortage of workers wanting to work for Amazon.

It's kind of interesting because Amazon has built a reputation for being absolutely ruthless to their workers (not just delivery or warehouse). You have the notorious NYT article from 2015 (the article mentions this): https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-... The online perception is that it has only gotten worse. It doesn't take much to find stories on teamblind, twitter, reddit, or even hacker…

> At what point do we simply ask if Amazon leaders have no sense of decency?

We don't need to ask, we already know. Actions speak louder than words anyway, and we've all seen how they treat all their workers: from warehouse to corporate. One would be a bit naive to think only their warehouse workers get treated badly, corporate workers are slapped around just as much in their own way.

Even in death, Amazon doesn't care and will lie through its teeth: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/17/amazon-wa...

> Billy had lain on the floor for 20 minutes before receiving treatment from Amazon’s internal safety responders.

> Bill was laying there for 20 minutes and nobody nearby saw until an Amnesty worker with a radio came by.

> A couple of days before, he put the wrong product in the wrong bin and within two minutes management saw it on camera and came down to talk to him about it

> “After the incident, everyone was forced to go back to work. No time to decompress. Basically watch a man pass away and then get told to go back to work, everyone, and act like it’s fine,”

> Amazon said it had responded to Foister’s collapse “within minutes”.

Amazon will just keep doing what it's doing because it can. Like you mentioned, online perception has gotten worse ever since that 2015 article, so clearly they just don't care about anything other than profit. Warehouse workers have had enough, they're pushing back by organizing their rights collectively. But so should corporate workers, we shouldn't have to keep watch over our shoulders every time we go to work in fear of PIP, or even at the interview stage where we have to suspect if we're getting "hired to be fired".

It's ridiculous. We should organize too.

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

#179

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

> If we raise min wage then they'll just fire people to make up the cost […]

Dropping employment due to higher (minimum) wages has mixed-data in empirical studies:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#Empirical_studies

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

#180
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Needing to see a doctor suddenly means you're a poor worker?

Needing to urinate while on shift also makes you a poor worker. I see bottles of sun tea piled up in various places around town where delivery trucks pause for red lights. Those are good workers, committed to the job.

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