Just as Andy hoped. He'll cut headcount without layoffs and the ones left will be the ones who couldn't get jobs elsewhere. Those who couldn't find work elsewhere will be easier to abuse because they will believe they don't have other options.
https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...
Amazon is facing a looming crisis: It could run out of people to hire in its US warehouses by 2024, according to leaked Amazon internal research from mid-2021 that Recode reviewed. [...] “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” the research, which hasn’t previously been reported, says.
It verges on hand wavy distraction
They have run out of folks to abuse at the previous price point. The wage floor will continue to rise. Even Bank of America is raising wages for tellers [4]. Demographics are destiny, all that jazz.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/amazon-bo... | https://archive.today/5ODb8
[2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/amazon-wage-incre... | https://archive.today/fY28B
[3] https://www.ebri.org/retirement/content/new-research-of-u.s.... ("A new research report published today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) taking a historical look at labor force participation and employment data in the United States found the prime working age population (25–64 years old) has significantly fallen and is being filled by older workers. At the same time, the labor force participation rate of those ages 65 or older has not reached its pre-pandemic level, while that of the prime working age population has reached that level")
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41500201 ("Bank of America is pledging to pay its bank tellers and other hourly workers at least $24 per hour starting in October. The company says that this pay raise, from $23 per hour currently, will affect “thousands” of its 212,000 employees. The wage increase will particularly affect tellers and other customer-facing employees, such as call-center workers.")
(~10K Boomers retire per day, 3.6M per year; ~1.8M people 55+ die every year in the US, ~5k per day; roughly half of which are in the labor force, so ~2.5k workers actively in a job die each day; ~20% of the population is retired today, in 10 years that'll go to ~30%)
That seems like an odd goal to assume of someone who needs to keep the company doing well to keep shareholders happy.
Way back in the 60s in my country the government in consultation with the business world came up with a genius idea: give everyone a bonus pay check to spend on holidays. It created entire leisure industries nobody could imagine.
I’ve seen both types of people stuck in their position. And working harder/longer doesn’t guarantee any degree of quality either.
Oh, come on. There're people that like working in the office. It's unfair to label them as "the ones who couldn't get jobs elsewhere".
That's likely disproportionately employees who have families (hence a commute), so skew older and more senior. These employees will take the secret sauce they learned over many years at Amazon and spread it to startups and other orgs.
It's kind of like fungus spore dispersal.