The leaked Amazon memo states that the company’s available workforce will be terminated by 2024
According to an internal memo leaked on the record, Amazon is expected to run out of potential workers for its US warehouses by 2024. The memo contained internal research from 2021 that predicted a labor crisis for the e-commerce giant that would hit some sectors faster than others. For example, Amazon is expected to run out of workers in Phoenix, Arizona by the end of 2021, and the Inland Empire in California by the end of 2022. It calculated the available pool of workers using factors such as income level and current or planned proximity. Amazon feature.
The report called for the company to take steps to bridge the gap for future workers, such as raising wages to retain existing employees and attracting more new employees. He also suggested increasing automation in warehouses. “If we continue to do business as usual, Amazon will reduce the available workforce in the US network by 2024,” the report’s authors wrote.
In a statement to Engadget, an Amazon spokesman said the leaked document was not an accurate assessment of the circumstances of his appointment. “Throughout the company there are a number of draft documents written on a variety of topics that are used to test assumptions and look at various possible scenarios, but are not then extended or used to make decisions. It was one of them. This does not represent a real situation and we are doing well in Phoenix, the Inland Empire and across the country, “wrote Rena Lunak, Amazon’s director of global operations and field communications.
Automation means Amazon has already made a huge investment by buying Kiva Systems in 2012. But according to last year’s wired investigation, Amazon’s warehouse robots are not capable of handling advanced fulfillment tasks that only human workers can do.
Human workers were once the company’s sufficient resources. The tech giant is the second-largest private employer in the U.S. and the largest private employer in U.S. states and cities. The company announced plans to hire 125,000 workers last fall, equivalent to the population of Georgia’s Savannah. But the new appointments appear to be mainly to replace those who have been fired or resigned. Amazon’s turnover is approximately 150 percent per year, or double that of the large-scale retail and logistics industries, a New York Times investigation revealed last year.
As per the record notes, Amazon’s attrition rate is even worse in Phoenix and Inland Empire. It will also have to compete with big-box stores like Walmart and Target, which now offer competitive wages to those with warehouse experience. “We hear a lot of [Amazon] workers say, ‘I can just go to Target or Walmart off the road,'” Shehryar Kaosji, co-executive director of the Inland Empire’s Warehouse Worker Resource Center, told the record.
