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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

#601

Post by dr_spicy »

TMWNN wrote: post #575
pvankessel wrote: post #544

Not surprised to see this pop up. I interviewed for a position with Amazon a few months back to lead up a new research program to determine how they can better recruit and retain hourly workers. I had no intention of taking the job, but was curious so I took the interview. What stood out was just the sheer scale at which they're operating - they're literally up against the constraints of domestic labor supply. I have…

>I interviewed for a position with Amazon a few months back to lead up a new research program to determine how they can better recruit and retain hourly workers. Some companies take pride in promoting from within. McDonald's is well known for turning entry-level workers into store mangers, then regional managers, and so on. Walmart does this, too. Does Amazon not have such a culture?

They definitely have some fluff pieces talking about cases where it happens, no idea how common it is relative to those others though

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

#602

Post by labcomputer »

swatcoder wrote: post #286
FFRefresh wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. This is a common type of formulation in journalism that often reveals the bias of the journalist. 1. Walmart pays S…

I upvoted this for contributing a valuable and insightful clarification about how those two statements relate, but the part where you attribute "tactics" and "bias" to the journalist has no direct evidence and reads like a political meme. You may be convinced of your interpretation, but it's also likely that the journalist isn't rigorous enough to notice the distinction themselves, didn't have access to perfectly com…

> Never attribute to malice that which blah blah blah...

I think we need to hold journalists to higher standard than "complete idiot".

I've noticed the same pattern, and I can't believe it's not intentional.

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

#604

Post by somerandomqaguy »

ljm wrote: post #535
swat535 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and it has always been like this. Why would companies truly "value" Engineering? The majority of execs thinks we are just interchangeable drones and the only reason the salaries are so high in SV is because they literally can't get away with less. If they could, US salaries would be comparable to Canada or EU which are embarrassingly low for the amount of work they require. They will fire you in an instant to sav…

> If they could, US salaries would be comparable to Canada or EU which are embarrassingly low for the amount of work they require. I think that misses a cultural difference, which is that Canada and EU jobs don't require as much work because our work ethic is different. I can earn 100k in London and be very comfortable doing less than 40 hours a week, never working weekends, never doing crunch time, never being force…

Canadian here. I have my doubts on that; I had some devs that's consistently pulled 280 hours a month and once hit I think 320 hours. His salary was $59,000 CAD a year, and I believe the junior devs working with him were earning $11/hr circa 2010 ish and were working fairly close to those hours.

The longest work day I've had is 40 or 50 hours without sleep to meet a deadline that and then had to be in bright and early the next morning. But there's been more then a few times a year that I ended up sleeping in the office because I missed the last 1:00am train out.

Not all Canadian companies are like that anymore then all American companies are like Amazon or Google. Nor do I claim to understand why this is the case, but at least from what I've seen, Canadian tech salaries do lag quite a lot compared to US salaries compared to the skill demanded.

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

#605

Post by r00fus »

burntoutfire wrote: post #458
knolan wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That almost sounds like a cult.

A cult takes money from you and doesn't pay you a million a year or whatever these people are making.

Their work output is worth more than the compensation or Bezos wouldn't be authorizing it.

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

#606

Post by ActorNightly »

cebert wrote: post #517
ActorNightly wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is a $150k out of college starting salary low?

That sounds low to me

When you make an argument for companies paying that much, you are essentially saying "FAANG companies with lots of cash reserves should overpay new hires in the goal to attract as many of them as possible in hopes that a few of them make something profitable and offset the cost"

While a viable business strategy, from a personal value perspective, if you are an average CS college grad, you are by far not going contribute even close to $150k/year worth of value - you are going to do some menial basic code modifications.

So by all means, while you can go and take advantage of the inflated salaries to maximize your own profit as much as you can, but you cannot claim that $150k starting salary is too low.

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

#607

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

scarface74 wrote: post #591
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the purposes of my answers, I am taking your cost-of-living values as they are. I am not convinced they are correct, but willing to assume that they are. > Should the minimum wage there be $48/hour after taxes? Yes. > A living wage there is about $44/hour for a family of four. Should that be the minimum wage in Portland? Yes. What's your alternative? "Oh sorry, your job is requires so little skill that even thoug…

So you want to raise the minimum wage of everyone in San Francisco to $131K a year? How is that going go work out for inflation? You want to raise the minimum wage of everyone in Portland to $91K year? Let’s say the average grocery store has 6 people working every hour for 16 hours a day and 355 days a year. Their labor cost would be $1.465 million. Grocery stores already operate on thin margins ( https://www.biz2cre…

Let's just say that I don't subscribe to the conservative traditional view of economics and politics that you're using to point out how absurd this sounds.

Yes, I believe we should be paying much, much more for most of the things in our lives. Right now, those of us who make about 80% of median income and above are essentially riding on the backs who make less. I think this is immoral, although I recognize that changing it is a millenia long project that faces staunch opposition.

I want to see GDP distributed more evenly. In reality, the likely end game is not that everyone in Portland makes $91k a year or more, but that there is massively more redistribution within the economy, high end incomes fall, overall highest:lowest income ratios drop, housing prices drop (because more housing is built, and housing ceases to be an investment), and lots more good stuff that

I wonder, how do you personally justify millions of people working for less than a living wage? Do you feel that there just has be a bunch of people who lose out in life, and that's just the way it is? What makes it all seem OK to you?

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

#608

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

scarface74 wrote: post #597
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s not how VCs make money. They make money based on “exits” either via acquisition or IPO. It doesn't matter. The only question for YC is whether they make money or not. They make money on some of their investments, and lose it on others. It's fairly clear that on average, that is, summed across all winners and losers, they make money overall.

I’m not questioning YCs business model. I’m calling out the hypocrisy of people who say that “companies who can’t afford to pay their employees a livable wage and stay in business don’t deserve to exist” while many people here work for companies who are only able to pay their wages even though they work at non profitable companies because they are being propped up by VC funding.

Well, in this you're seeing the result of living in a society that is responsive to the needs and desires of people with money and power. In this case, YC is an example of such people, and they've made the decision that what Overinflated Sense of Self's Startup is up to is potentially valuable enough that they'll fund it. OSSS has been judged "worthwhile" by enough money that for now at least, it can keep going.

On the other hand, Andy's Average Appetizers is of no particular interest to VC money, or any other money really, and so yep, they're going to go under because they don't anything that attracts enough money to make them viable (possibly at a higher living wage standard, possibly at current minimum wage standards).

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

#609

Post by Rexxar »

burntoutfire wrote: post #458
knolan wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That almost sounds like a cult.

A cult takes money from you and doesn't pay you a million a year or whatever these people are making.

They give money but take your life time.

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

#610

Post by labcomputer »

Hasu wrote: post #307
surement wrote: post #192

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…

> 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. One of the many fallacies here that hasn't already been pointed out is that it's impossible to determine the exact amount of revenue a single emp…

> One of the many fallacies here that hasn't already been pointed out is that it's impossible to determine the exact amount of revenue a single employee is responsible for in any real world employment situation.

Sure. But if it costs $100/hr in labor to run a McDonalds (split between cashier, burger flipper, fry guy), $100/hr in ingredients, and the store only produces $150/hr in revenue, it's not hard to figure out that those wages are unsustainable.

Blah blah, businesses don't deserve to exist if they can't pay whatever wage. Sure, but I'm not saying McDonalds deserves to exist--I'm saying those people won't have jobs when it becomes very obvious that the store is losing money.

Just because you can't pinpoint the exact contribution of every worker does not mean that you can't have a pretty good estimate of the contribution from retail workers in practice.

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