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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

#191
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post #41

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It's zero sum. You're hurting your fellow citizens by diluting their labor. You may think this is a righteous position, but from the perspective of a nationalist, you are strictly harming not helping your fellow countrymen, and therefore you set yourself up as their enemy. >only cares about And the prosperity of their own country. It is "selfish" yes. But a selfishness that extends out to their kin and their neighbor…

I don't think it is zero sum?

Increasing the amount of people means more resource usage, but also more chances for innovation and economies of scale.

Much power in Trump's trade war came from the size of the consumer base

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

While the comment you're replying to is wrong, these empirical studies are ridiculous. Every price has some elasticity, but the fact is that if a worker earns an employer $8 an hour in revenue, they're not going to pay that worker $9 an hour, and if the minimum wage was greater than $8 an hour, then that worker would be out of a job, thus making $0 an hour. The studies about the price elasticity of labor also don't bother to prove that there are real-world benefits beyond the fact that a higher minimum wage sounds good. Being unemployed is not better than making a low wage.

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

#193
post #171
post #44

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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

I'm sure there are great teams to work for at Amazon. After all it is a large company with many different offices all over that does a lot of different things. However, my naïve estimation is that I am not very likely to land on one of these teams and much more likely to end up in a meat grinder. However, like I said, that is just my perception and I could be wrong. I just don't intend to find out.

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

#194
post #136

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…

EBITDA is 60 bn from 470 bn revenue. Net income is 33 bn USD. They couldn't spend 125k per worker.

Did i say they could "spend" that? No. I said:

> that’s $125k per employee of profit

And it is. Gross profit.

I could use one of your numbers, $33B net income, or $60B EBITDA. But using those number accepts the premise that all of that money was allocated correctly, and it's just the 33B left over that is free to be distributed.

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

#195
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.

+1 They are horrible to work for as an SDE.

I regret my 3 years at Amazon, and wish I had left sooner. When I left for G, ~15 people called/emailed to tell me how I was going to a much better company, including my own manager.

People love to say that its manager dependent, but IMO the default at amazon is the horrible, employee-exploiting culture. So a good team/manager is the exception, and thing will eventually turn to shit.

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

#196
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't really thought before about how left-wing folks typically want higher wages as well as more mass immigration which inherently suppresses wages. In their defense, they want raises waged by law rather than by market (an elevated minimum wage would raise wages irrespective of immigration), but considering how unlikely a minimum federal wage hike is, it seems like they're pursuing two contradictory goals. EDIT:…

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

#198
post #102

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...

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…

Everyone is Ludwig von Mises these days.

Time to start buying stock in Keynes.

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

#200
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of minimum wage is a floor, not that someone has to make that level. If everyone makes more, good.

>The purpose of minimum wage is a floor, It goes deeper than that. There was a documentary that leaked a new Walmart employee going through their initial first day orientation. If you were a new hire and were married and/or had children, you got extra "orientation" on all the government benefits you now qualified for (welfare, food stamps, medicaid, etc) since you were now considered below the USA poverty line. I am…

It makes sense, kinda. When your public and private social programs are numerous and disconnected, getting a job can mean losing a lot of benefits while qualifying for others.

e.g. my employer had a session about their benefits package: If I was on welfare, this would be a change in how everything works. It would have been nice if they had a session on our national pension scheme since I was now obligated to start paying into that.

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