1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by Retric » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #378

heavyset_go wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One solution can be for a union, government, Amazon etc, is to put aside money for a fund that will invest in training these employees so they could one day not depend on these kind of low-leverage jobs. Unions have negotiated with companies that outsource or automate its members' jobs to secure compensation for the workers who were affected. However, I think this is a problem that requires a larger solution. There…

> We're heading towards a world where most work is done by machines, and only a handful of people will own, control and profit from them People keep saying that but we are no closer than we were 50 years ago. A lot of jobs have been replaced but new jobs have been created and society has absorbed the increased productivity (cheaper goods, foods, and much more complex high end goods (iPhone, airplanes, etc).

Counting workers is misleading, you don’t replace a 40$ an hour jobs with a 15$ an hour job without consequences. Beyond that looking at the percentage of Americans employed shows a net drop even accounting for retirement etc.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001

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

#402

Post by vadym909 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

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 wait

Product Makers will at some point realize they can sell direct and do it without AMZN. e.g. Nike, Apple

Competitors- Dick's, Best Buy will give product makers ultimatums- if we get undercut by AMZn, we're not going to sell your stuff- so you decide. Its nice to be able to buy and pickup curbside same day

Customers- I already find Amzn beating prices on eBay about 25% of the time. eBay shipping times are improving too

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

#403

Post by kortilla » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

dstick wrote: post #150

shakezula wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So aside from “just stop buying from Amazon” what can we do ? The "just stop buying amazon" arguments never made sense to me in the first place, because most people who use it are the ones budget-stretched in the first place. A lot of rural communities have no other viable options for some items as well. It will take massive government action and that's it. There's no other way we can fix this problem. Wages are su…

And it’s a negative cycle. Those already budget stretched people are getting paid poorly by Amazon, so they too will shop at Amazon. We’re not there yet but the cycle is reminiscent of the factory owners with factory stores and pubs where the workers spend all their money during the industrial revolution. Unions and worker laws stem from that era. So who knows - maybe we’re on the cusp of another revolution that’s si…

It’s not reminiscent of it at all. The factory stores had shitty prices and were the only option. Amazon employees can choose to spend their money anywhere. The company towns are gone.

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

#404

Post by allturtles » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

8note wrote: post #331

allturtles wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm increasingly put out by Amazon and am trying to stop the habit of shopping there. I like books, and Amazon was founded on books, but the way they ship books now (typically loose in a soft envelope or mostly empty box) means that >50% of the books I've ordered recently have arrived damaged and had to be returned. They used to shrinkwrap books to a cardboard plate inside the box. There are other problems: 1) Search…

You couldn't read these books? Or you couldn't show off that you owned them? How do you lose a page from inside of a box/envelope?

Consider a category of item you care about. Would you accept it if it were sold to you as being in new condition, but arrived with substantial cosmetic damage? A dining table with a gash down the middle of it still holds food just fine. A white door spattered with red paint still opens and closes and keeps the wind out. Carpeting stained with wine still keeps your feet warm.

Often, in any case, the damage is more than cosmetic. A paperback book that has been badly creased is more difficult to read than one that's in good condition.

Caring about the condition of books is not a strange idiosyncrasy. There's a clear stratification in the price of the book market as you descend from new to very good to acceptable condition - because buyers generally care.

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

#405

Post by JustARandomGuy » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

8note wrote: post #356

JustARandomGuy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nothing malicious; it's a common way to express employment figures. Farm payrolls tend to swell and contract seasonally (to pick/plant and much less work in-between) so "non-farm workforce" is a way of smoothing out the numbers.

What do lose by not considering farm workers?

Just to start off with, I'm not an expert; what I know is from my undergraduate days taking way too many economics classes. If someone is more knowledgeable feel free to call me out.

You're not losing much by skipping farm workers; as I noted above farm payroll changes seasonally, so skipping farm payrolls just helps to smooth the data - I suppose you could also consider it as another way to seasonally-adjust employment figure, although that is stretching the term quite a bit.

In addition farm hands for picking/planting are poorly paid and tend to have vague residency status (not making a political point, just economic reality) and so including that data does not change related figures such as GDP too much. It wouldn't surprise me if politics encourages the reporting of non-farm data due to the issue I mentioned above of vague residency status; see the current DACA fight for how contentious discussions like this can get.

TLDR the numbers work out better and nobody of importance cares about the difference

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

#406

Post by bradknowles » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

nunez wrote: post #259

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…

The reason why I'm personally okay with buying stuff from the Everything Store is because [1] retail is a brutal business, [2] _everyone_ in retail (except perhaps the executive leadership) is treated like shit, and [3] Amazon, for all of their failings, is still absolutely obsessed with customer satisfaction. Amazon is still one of few companies that has a completely seamless, no-BS return policy, for example. The "…

No, they’re not. They’re obsessed with taking your money and then giving you no avenue of recourse if you’re not satisfied.

Order a three pack of cat litter and get only two packs in the box because one never got included in the first place or the box was opened during transit and the re-taped closed with obviously non-Amazon tape? Gotta ship that box back with two bags of cat litter in it, before you can get a replacement box of three bags of cat litter.

Guess how many times that kind of crap has already happened to me?

Why can’t I just send the pictures of the box and then they send me the third bag of cat litter that got stolen?

I’m tempted to ship them back the bags of cat litter after they’ve been used, so that they can inspect other outputs too….

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

#407

Post by kortilla » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #394

8note wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there no federal corporate taxes? Or would the US be discluded since it's not a nation state?

With the correct arrangement of holding companies, etc… in various countries around the world, corporations usually get away with paying virtually no taxes themselves. They might have to collect local sales taxes or some such, but going through Ireland, the Netherlands, and various other tax havens, the company itself pays effectively no taxes. And that’s assuming they choose to make a profit. Amazon intentionally ma…

> would otherwise have become “profit” and spend it in a way that counts as “re-investing”.

Yes, so that’s not profit anymore. What’s the problem?

Would you prefer that businesses be taxed on revenue and not profit?

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

#408

Post by bradknowles » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #260

nunez wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why I'm personally okay with buying stuff from the Everything Store is because [1] retail is a brutal business, [2] _everyone_ in retail (except perhaps the executive leadership) is treated like shit, and [3] Amazon, for all of their failings, is still absolutely obsessed with customer satisfaction. Amazon is still one of few companies that has a completely seamless, no-BS return policy, for example. The "…

>[3] Amazon, for all of their failings, is still absolutely obsessed with customer satisfaction. I recently had an AWS issue. Emailed our rep. Next day I was on the phone with like 8 Amazon people, high up enough to make things happen and low enough to make things happen. It was pretty wild and yes, for all their faults, the are the most customer focused company I’ve ever worked with.

AWS != Amazon.

Amazon is famous for their fake returns that get put back into inventory without being inspected.

Amazon is famous for their fly-by-night third party operators who do all sorts of crazy shit to the customer, but then Amazon claims it’s not their fault. And then Amazon also refuses to tell you who the actual third party was that did the crime.

Amazon is famous for not giving you an adequate solution to a problem that they caused.

Amazon could solve a lot of problems just by never co-mingling inventory from one seller with that from another seller — or with FBA inventory.

Let each seller sink or swim on their own, and let their information be fully exposed to the customer.

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

#409

Post by anotheraccount9 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

I'm terribly sorry to bring this up this way but: if Amazon is a bad employer, why are so many people working for this business? Is it because it's better than jobs with comparable wages (are others similar?)

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

#410

Post by llamataboot » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

drorco wrote: post #203

shakezula wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So aside from “just stop buying from Amazon” what can we do ? The "just stop buying amazon" arguments never made sense to me in the first place, because most people who use it are the ones budget-stretched in the first place. A lot of rural communities have no other viable options for some items as well. It will take massive government action and that's it. There's no other way we can fix this problem. Wages are su…

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…

There's not enough high-value jobs to go around. We can either automate and share the wealth, or automate and have a class of useless poor people and some factory owners. Historically the former tends to end in violent ways. And so far, we haven't experimented enough with sharing the wealth in ways that also didn't turn incredibly authoritarian and also oppressive with violent ends...