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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

#361
post #269

> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled, according to reporting by the New York Times. Wow. Think about what this is really saying: Amazon adopts the explicit policy of not wanting their workers to stay on long enough to figure out that they are getting…

This is not unusual at all. My first job as a developer was with a big consulting firm. Undergraduate seniors were hired en masse every year as entry-level staff consultants. The expectation (not stated, but not hard to figure out) was that many would leave within a few years. Some would remain and get promoted, even fewer would stick around long enough to be considered for partnership. The work hours were long (50 h…

Big consulting firms are exactly the place you should avoid, especially if you're a developer with plenty of better options.

If you like working in the office / overworking just get into a fang and get more money. If you want a quiet environment go for smaller companies and get the same money as your big consultancy.

Nobody cares where you worked unless it's a fang, anyway

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

#362
post #346
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Cars are this big advertising moving billboard. Car companies employee thousands who work in cities built around these plants. Having employees driving around earning high paying wages spending it around town has a big influence on the rest of the town/region.

seems tenuous and hard to objectify. You could also use the same argument to say that raining $5 bills from your company offices has net positive value, eg.

1. dump a sack of $5 bills from your office

2. people associate your company with giving them free stuff, thereby giving you positive influence

3. ???

4. profit

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

#363
post #269

> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled, according to reporting by the New York Times. Wow. Think about what this is really saying: Amazon adopts the explicit policy of not wanting their workers to stay on long enough to figure out that they are getting…

People need to read some history.

The early 20th century industrialists talked about all the same stuff. People are fickle and managing them at scale is hard. There's more to it than just "give them a good deal". There are plenty of people who are getting a "good deal" who become complacent or disgruntled.

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

#364
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>figure out that they are getting a bad deal. That's not what it's "really saying". That's you adding analysis. I think hourly workers are perfectly capable of figuring out if a job is a good or bad deal for them. They have bills and payments that must be made or they will suffer real consequences. They aren't making employment decisions based on free soda, foosball tables, and the political affiliation of the CEO.

If you can pass Amazon algorithms interview you can get hired in any other fang. Literally all the others are on average better options than Amazon for your mental health (even if not by as much as you think)

The labor analysis in TFA did not appear to consider technical staff.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

If a position cannot pay well enough for the employed to sustain themselves then it should not exist in the first place. If there literally are not enough jobs that can pay sustainable wages to everyone in need, then we need to rethink how our economy works on a fundamental level. A system that requires some portion of the population to go hungry or even homeless is ethically indefensible.

Not sure how being unemployed is better than making a low wage in terms of being hungry or homeless. Are you just trying to advocate for communism?

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

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journalist did their job by offering these statements with all the qualifiers that you used to make your comparison. Journalists have to work with the information they get; they can’t force two employers to give them perfectly comparable figures. Their job is to accurately report the info they do get.

There are plenty of websites where employees share their wages/salaries, which enable direct comparisons between companies. A simple google search reveals such data. Also, for a lot of these jobs, the companies post the pay ranges on the actual job description. These wages aren't some super secret data point. Referencing a 2021 Reuters article as the source for Amazon wage data is an interesting choice, when you can…

When you're working as a professional journalist, a "simple google search" isn't enough: how can you be sure that the information you are seeing on those kinds of wage comparison websites is accurate, and comes from people who genuinely worked at those companies?

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, my honest impression is that left-wing people generally (i.e., it's a very popular position on the left) wanted to lower the barrier for "asylum seekers" which implies admitting lots of people without respect to their educational background or skill (hence "mass immigration"). I didn't realize this was controversial (I thought everyone agreed that this is a popular position on the left). This also isn't a value…

"Asylum seeker" is a specific term, for example see this UN glossary: https://www.unhcr.org/449267670.pdf . In particular it's not about huddled masses, it's about people escaping violent situations and active persecution. Putting "asylum seeker" in scare quotes and conflating it with general immigration is a right-wing thing to do. If you don't want people to mistake you for a right-wing partisan then consider just…

I'm sure I'm somewhat imprecise with my terms (I didn't realize I was speaking to a group of immigration lawyers). I've been as clear as I can be, and I can't force anyone to understand against their will. Good day.
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