So 100,000 will be retrained. And how many of the remaining 200,000 will lose their jobs?
Ain't capitalism great?
95
@Michael. Ain’t it effective? So maybe these bozos shouldn’t go on strike on Amazon Prime day.
2
@Michael
Good question, I always wonder about what happened to the Luddites when the machines replaced their jobs in the textile mills.
Maybe we would all be better off farming, working in textile mills and living the short simple lives.
16
@John
That's where most of the commenters think we should go. Unfortunately the rest of the world will keep progressing and the US will slowly fall apart as most civilizations do after 2 to 4 hundred years unless they adapt to their competition. The luddites didn't change and they are long gone. Or maybe now they are just NYT commenters.
6
While it's great that Amazon is going to offer retraining to some of its employees, it would be interesting to see how many people in their 40's or 50's will be offered retaining or simply laid off. As someone who aged out of high tech in his 50's, my guess is that age discrimination will win out once again.
Unless you have expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning or robotics that is.
117
@Kevin I'm 68 and just taking a quick break from working on a program. I've always worked with IT people who just weren't willing to put in the intellectual effort to learn the next technology coming down the road. People don't "age out" they lazy out.
16
@Johnny Stark
Johnny, that may be true. And to that I say good for you! I am 62 and have kept current with the "next technology coming down the road". In fact, I am personally a step ahead, working on introducing technology that hasn't been released yet.
Problem is, it's a gig economy job. You know, no consistency or benefits like insurance. At 68 you may be on Medicare. My wife and I pay a "house payment" for a policy with a $7500 deductible. I can guarantee I'm not the only one in that boat.
Some may "lazy out". Many more are thrown out because they cost more than a 30 year old. Just the way things are in 2019. If you haven't experienced that, consider yourself lucky.
14
$700 million to retrain a third of its workforce? That really means $700 million to retrain a third of its workforce so it can lay off the other two thirds and make Jeff Bezos and shareholders even richer.
4
Amazon’s Latest Experiment: Retaining Its Work Force
This is a great opportunity for me and all of my other co workers! Thank you amazon.
@Dylan -- Said the goat to the farmer. Uncritical and blithely unaware of the bigger picture, the goats stood in awe as the huge truck delivered a year's worth of hay.
1
Dear Ben and Adam-
I appreciate the fact you are covering this topic and that you write well. But, unfortunately, you are describing trees without seeing that the forest before you is on fire. Amazon has opened convenience stores that are staffed only by tech devices and a security guard, is exploring the use of drones for delivery, and is in every way attempting to eliminate human labor as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. Also, many of the people who work for Amazon (in warehouses for example) are contract laborers, hired to avoid the costs of employees. The fact that they will train a small number of people for some tech positions isn't in itself, given the full context, much of a story.
4
Success or failure will depend on who is chosen to be retrained - those with a reasonably strong academic background and desire to be challenged, or a list of names picked from the total. Government programs that sought to re-train coal miners into coders were doomed to fail. Coal miners do not have the background for coding, and would not be happy at a desk viewing detailed lines of code.
But the real question that must be faced is how many low skilled workers can the economy absorb in a high tech world with automation taking over routine work that requires little decision making. Better improve K-12 fast!
1
Does this have something to do with the John Oliver show?
Sometimes the reporter's perceived need to 'cover all sides' does a big disservice to readers and perpetuates the very problems the NYT claims to clarify.
Here, we have a paragraph warning us that economists (like Krugman? *No* like Stiglitz? *No*) have determined that wage increases will require more productivity, and therefore, more technology, more automation. Very unhelpfully and incorrectly stated by the reporters here as a fact: "When workers aren't more productive, it is harder for companies to pay them more".
Reporters: Please review the decoupling of wages from productivity growth in the U.S. over the past decades. Workers have not been participating proportionately in the economic gains from productivity gains. In other words -- it's not the level of corporate profits that has been keeping worker paychecks from rising in the same way as those corporate profits. We don't need need great gains in 'worker productivity' to see more fair pay for workers. Instead, we need new policies from government and new commitments from business leaders and shareholders to ensure that gains are fairly shared. Please don't be cheerleaders for a new wave of automation to supposedly enable bigger worker paychecks. It doesn't work that way.
6
@John -- This article was written from the neoliberal perspective that brandishes the neoclassical myth of economics that all we need to set things straight is a little more of what's got us down.
1
How are other countries handling this mismatch between skills and needs? Germany, Sweden, Japan. Can we learn anything from them? Or do we have to keep reinventing the wheel?
I find the assertion that "productivity of American workers is rising slowly" disputable. In researching my book Career Reinvented 2 years ago, I found lots of data on the coming "jobpocalypse" and I also found information showing how worker productivity, which has steadily risen for the past 60 years, became decoupled from rates of pay beginning in the 1970s. (Search for Economic Policy Institute "Wage Stagnation in 9 charts"). In other words, the corporate hierarchy has been reaping those benefits not workers. Maybe if they were paid commensurate with their increases in productivity, then productivity would rise fast enough to satisfy economists? Kudos to Amazon for initiating this job retraining program, but honestly the whole system of wages needs to reward workers more. What is the compelling mandate for more automation? Profit....it should be shared more with the workers, but automation gets rid of that problem nicely doesn't it?
4
Most economists see productivity growth stagnating.
Amazon sells books. My two non-fiction titles reside here - and whether a coder or robot pulls my books, I just hope people read them. Because I'm in a lousy low-wage job following the Great Recession, having turned 50, kicked from corporate.
2
"Productivity — the amount of value that employees create, on average, in an hour of work — has been rising slowly. That has helped drag down both economic growth and wages. When workers aren’t more productive, it is harder for companies to pay them more."
Where's the connection? Since 1973, real GDP per capita has gone up 214%. Real wages have hardly changed. Workers are running faster and faster just to stay in place. Maybe the quote should be "When workers aren't more productive, it is harder for companies to pay them the same."
3
So training workers used to be standard, especially in technical fields. Amazon, Facebook etc. tried using sweatshop techniques in technical fields. Now they are redecorating the sweatshop, and seem to want a reward for it.
4
In real life worker training has been a standard but often a low one. I applaud organizations who are making improvements.
What a time we live in when its news worthy that a company is actually training their workforce.
6
Why hasn't the NYT covered the current strike at Amazon? The way that Amazon treats its works now is relevant.
5
I spent most of my working career as a crane operator. Back in the late 60's when I first started, these machines were generally a rather crude affair with almost zero electronic augmentation to help you operate it more safely. Everything was seat-of-the-pants.
When I retired a few years back my crane operating skills were definitely out of date. The computer controlled almost everything, and TV monitors let you know everything that was going on. Fortunately for me there were still enough old school cranes to keep me busy until I started my rocking chair on the porch days.
The point being that this, I'm sure, is simply one example of how the work place in changing. And, for those who believe college is not for them, vocational training in modern machinery and operating techniques is fast becoming a more sought after way to avoid the debt trap of college.
7
In NewSpeak retraining means having the excuse to blame the prole as you show him the door.
6
Time's Arrow.
Better to move along with it than be impaled by it.
MB
6
Once again private enterprise leads the way, where the government has stumbled, bumbled, and wasted money by the billions.
I wish I had as much faith in government as I did in Amazon. And yes, I put my money where my mouth is.
4
@RLS seed money from the US government has funded nearly all the technological advances in the last 50 years, in the form of grants to universities where the technology is developed. It is then picked up by the private sector and configured for profit. The technology in smartphones is almost entirely created in this fashion.
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@RLS
Wait, you think the government is responsible for training corporate employees? 20 years ago a company training its workforce so that they could advance their careers in the same company was standard.
It is odd to assume that a company doing something in its own interest is somehow the job of the government.
2
So if we're worried about the effects of automation on low skilled workers, why do we continue to let millions of uneducated, unskilled people through our borders? This just makes no sense, except to cynical Democrats who think it will finally lead them to power. Except that it won't.
5
@Michele
Many advanced countries are having inadequate man power to operate their countries due to population decline. Take for instance, Japan, which has had very strict immigration policy for decades, or centuries if you count the 300 years of Tokugawa shogunate rule), is having shortage of workers, mostly low skill level workers, like construction and service industries (Seven-Eleven, a Japanese company, and many other convenient stores have cut down their opening hours. It used to be 24/7 but now have to shut the door for hours, because of shortage of workers). They have reluctantly began to allow more and more foreigners to work in Japan. Even China will begin to have man power problems in a few decades becuse of population stagnation and decline. America becomes a great country like it is now because of the continuous inflow of immigrants of all kinds. "Manifest Destiny", a very complicate idea including American expansionism in North America, would not have happened without inflow of large numbers of immigrants. America could see the Pacific because of this population expansion via immigration. The transcontinental railway would not exist without Chinese and Irish immigrants. And we shouldn't forget the great contribution of slaves to the growth and prosperity of America. We will always need low skill workers to the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. Immigrants come in to fill the lowest rank of the economic pyramid.
2
If only economists could be retrained for something useful. Like being able to predict recessions before instead of after the fact.
4
@Rich Murphy
Predicting the future changes it. The future is like quantum mechanics, observing it changes it. So if I tell you that plane you're planning to ride in tomorrow will crash with no survivors, you'll wisely chose not to be on it.
2
Bravo! Regrettably there is no useful re-training for most economists. Don't get me wrong. It's good to understand much of what economics has to offer as a field of study.
But economists?
No.
When my grandchildren ask me what it was like when automation took over the jobs building the goods and providing the services people need to live, I will start by citing this article.
I will then explain to them that there was no difference between outsourcing jobs to other nations and having a robot take over a job, the effect was the same. Then I will point out that a robot eventually took over the job in all nations.
I will explain how no one admitted that the paradigm shift wasn't just increased automation, but rather was the inability for displaced workers to find other work. I'll explain how there were baseless claims that workers would still be able to find new work that did not exist before the robot came along.
(Right now in the present, there are low-paying service sector jobs with no benefits that do not offer a living wage. This is a slippery slope to having no wage at all, especially when automation, AI, and robotics become cheap enough to replace the low-wage service sector employment. I will have to explain this as well.)
I will tell my grandchildren that the propagandists made mendacious claims that jobs would be plentiful for people precisely because the primary concern was that the people would become scared and unruly if the truth was told that widespread unemployment was nigh. I will explain how the owners and managers of the political economy had no idea what to do about the inexorable end of work for such a large number of humans and hid the truth.
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@Chris My guess is that your story is the same one told by your grandfather and see, there are still plenty of jobs around. The types of jobs may change, but the current low unemployment rate indicates there are plenty of jobs to be found.
2
@Jon -- I said in the third paragraph: "I will explain how no one admitted that the paradigm shift wasn't just increased automation, but rather was the inability for displaced workers to find other work. I'll explain how there were baseless claims that workers would still be able to find new work that did not exist before the robot came along."
You act as if you can ignore the coming paradigm shift: the inability
for displaced workers to find new work. Furthermore, you state current low unemployment, but also ignore the fact that the vast majority of jobs created after the Great Recession are low-paying service sector jobs that do not pay decent living wages. And, worse, you think the current moment is good news for the future: the FED is considering lowering interest rate because they see the storm clouds forming. Low-wage workers will be the first tossed overboard.
Folks, when I said: "the propagandists made mendacious claims that jobs would be plentiful for people precisely because the primary concern was that the people would become scared and unruly if the truth was told that widespread unemployment was nigh," I was referring to exactly this reaction from Jon.
The average Amazon customer makes me sick. These are the same people that were turned off by Walmart... ewww, who goes there in their pajamas? And yet... you’re shopping at home tapping and clicking on a not much better product in your pajamas? What say you?
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Hi, VLB. Like most, I am an above average Amazon customer and happy not to threaten your sense of good health.
1
My advice: Before placing these people in training classes on the subject at hand, have them take a series of carefully prepared prerequisite tests. Then make sure the necessary training is administered to these people to assure their ability to successfully pass those prerequisite tests. Then move them on to the subject at hand.
Years ago I was Technical Training Manager at a firm that designed, engineered, and manufactured sophisticated high technology equipment. Our company decided to do its part for society by hiring laid off automobile assemblers during that time of tough transition in Detroit. My department was tasked with training these people to handle work that was far beyond their capabilities. To make a long story short, the whole program failed (my big failure in life).
When we go to school we learn 'A' before moving on to 'B'. Then once we've mastered 'A' and 'B' we can move on to 'C' (A and B being prerequisite to C). Then we continue on in that same manner until we're fully educated and ready to join the workforce.
Now return to paragraph one.
5
The workers are many, the real employers are few. And real on the job training is getting harder to find and is necessary to carrying out job tasks thoroughly and without costly mistakes.
I am in the boonies and have to waste unnecessary gas driving everywhere for supplies. I can’t rely on Amazon or delivery sources because my deliveries end up getting severely delayed or lost. My multivitamins and probiotics are currently somewhere out in the void right now... which I will cancel, get my money refunded and support my local mom and pop health food store. They give me coupons too!
1
Why can't Amazon give $700 million to undocumented immigrant workers and their families? They are under a lot of stress right now and they deserve our support!
@Aaron what your saying is true
Realistically, retraining Amazon warehouse employees may be a challenge. What about those who don’t have the aptitude? Also, aging workers... it only gets harder and harder to retain new info. What’s that expression, you can’t teach a dog new tricks?
I’d love this idea, getting workers more skills and into higher grades. It may even be a healthier environment opposed to how potentially toxic the average warehouse can be.
But I’m being realistic too.
I’m halfway through my life and I may be going back for my bachelors degree in a year. It scares me if I can do it only because it takes me much longer to retain info now.
3
@VLB Don’t be scared to go back to school. How much do you think 18-20 year olds retain from what they’ve learned in school? They cram for a test, and it’s gone. On the other hand, you have a maturity that typical college-age kids don’t have, presumably you will be less distracted by what distracts 18-20 year olds (I’m sure you know what I refer to.) You have a wisdom that kids don’t have, a life experience that will help you appreciate what you will study. Go back to school! It may seem daunting, but you can do it!
3
Here's a thought: those who lose their jobs to robotics can be retrained as customer support. Who else is better qualified to give advise to customers than those who used to put the widgets together?
Oh yeah, those jobs were outsourced to countries far, far away.
As for training them to become programmers and data scientists, the going price is $8 per hour. Ask Boeing, they know.
4
@Arthur Y Chan
It takes a special personality to be an effective customer support agent- Not everyone can do the job well.
3
@Aaron
Yes, I agree. Personality and temperament have a lot to do with it.
Retraining workers for the near future and not so near future is extremely important for our country’s current state and for the future. Our continued importance in the world is fundamentally tied into both retraining and educating workers and younger students, especially in math and science, as well as history, humanities, the arts, etc. It’s open for debate whether we are doing that now successfully.
6
I can understand why Andrew Yang is advocating for a guaranteed national income. It will be possible for some Amazon employees to train upwards to a better, more high skilled job, but many will not want or be able to. What is curious about all of this and what many miss is the need for our economy to have a consumption class of people who buy stuff. If the Amazon workers have no job and no money who will replace them as consumers? Robots don't buy Fords or Chevy's.
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@Ferniez
Hence, Andrew Yang's guaranteed national income.
Those who are without a job but has a guranteed income, how about help caring for the environment?
2
consumerism equals global warming
4
@Arthur Y Chan
Without a job due to AI / Automation, and worrying about paying rent, food, heath care issues, how many people will have the time to think about the environment? See the complete Yang's platform. Humanity First.
In the 70’s and 80’s IBM trained thousands of employees to become programmers. IBM used to have a practice to never lay off employees. They were successful with that policy from the early 1900’s to the 1990’s when a new brand of vulture leadership ruined the company and its great traditions.
10
we won't be needing millions more immigrants.
8
I can't remember hw many times I've seen 'we'll retrain them'. It never worked.
Blue collar factory workers will almost never find any opportunities once 'retrained' even if they are truly gifted in their new position (Rarely are they). This 'solution' has failed in company after company and is more a public relations episode to soften the huge job losses
One Wall Street firm thought they could turn operations personnel into coders as a win-win solution to their need to automate back office operations. People who knew how their areas worked should be able to automate those functions once they learned how to code, speeding operations while replacing themselves......you wouldn't have to hire experienced coders and would save money all around. You had educated and skilled operations staff but......... no. A huge waste of training $$$$$ - few of those chosen had any aptitude or talent for coding and the few that did were seen as threats by the existing staff (none too competent themselves). The EVP in charge of developing this new system bailed when it became clear nothing was being accomplished. He went on to ruin another company.
Retrained US workers can't compete with cheap foreign IT grads and it seems that the endless pursuit of the cheapest labor on a global scale is destroying the jobs base in the US.
4
A I will help people think logically
McKinsey, not Marx, projected on the front page of the Times a year and a half ago that tech would take away fully 47% of current American jobs by 2050. If you think people in low-level jobs today, who obviously were literally incapable of getting decent educations, are miraculously going to find highly technical future jobs “we can’t even imagine now,” boy, have I got the perfect bridge to sell you! We need to start preparing for a coming new economy in which half the people are unemployable, or the collapse in consumer demand as larger and larger swaths of jobs are wiped out will wreck the whole economy for all of us.
9
Who's going to retrain the garage attendants, cashiers and toll-takers who are losing their low-level jobs to machines? Will they be trained as computer programmers or engineers?
11
We have a consumer based economy and robots don't consume beyond power. Seems rather short sighted.
9
Once I was an engineer, a software engineer I worked in the IT industry as a System Designer, DBA developer, Network Engineer, and Project Manager. My career spanned 40 years, in the end, I managed remotely Indian IT teams in Chennai, et al. The work still needed to be done but not here but where it could be done for the cheapest possible cost. This is capitalism, this is American business becoming a global business and it is the future. Training, sure it transformed India and many other countries, making millions of people "middle class" in their countries. But workers won't come from our shores unless they are the cheapest and most cost effective available. Amazon gets an A this time but it won't be enough. Look at the future? Look at Japan, Italy, we face a crisis of dimensions we can not conceive of and all will change. If you are an economic winner now wait if you are a loser in the game that too will and can change. It happens for millions of Indians. Where we are going is unknowable.
17
I can't wait for the day when economist's jobs are replaced with AI. I wonder what they'll say about that.
9
The bell curve must be taken into account in thees discussions. When machines are flipping hamburgers and harvesting crops, where are those workers going to go? And I've got news for you, while AI may create some high paying jobs, it's not nearly as many as it will displace.
How many more employees does Apple need to double it's sales of iphones? You don't need one single additional engineer or software developer to sell 100 billions vs. 50 billion.
11
Automation is a very significant problem. Amazon's platform allows very dangerous things to push through to consumers and it is squeezing out all oversight functions because it slows down commerce. This is the beginning of a very serious conversation we need to have to understand what we value.
4
If Trump wants to save American jobs, he should deport machines instead of people.
5
"...government programs have tried to turn factory workers and coal miners into computer coders and data scientists, few of those efforts have succeeded..."
Because many liberal/progressive managers abandoned a merit-based workplace and gave low hourly wages to highly skilled, contract workers to train these people. Those who can will walk away, and start their own companies.
Two thumbs up to Amazon management for new, innovative solutions to look after the welfare of its employees. Well done!
Finally, and this is for AOC, good politicians will try to make things possible that seem impossible. Your job was to facilitate the negotiations and to negotiate the best deal for your constituents, not to hound Amazon out of NYC, a lose-lose proposition that should bear #45's signature.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queens.html
4
I get such a kick reading the comments of these know-it-alls in the comment section, 99.9% of whom have never worked in an FC for a single day.
4
I would venture to guess that within the next 25 years—give or take a few—automation will reach a point where most of what we do today will not be performed by people (white collar jobs included, if not first). Even if it ends up being 30 to 40 years, we must nevertheless plan for this eventuality. The vast majority of humans would prefer to remain active, with some type of task at hand. Our goal should be to refocus our collective energies on developing the arts, humanities and sciences to further the quality of life on this planet for all.
7
Logic says many, many people will lose their jobs. So Amazon has integrated the highest advanced technology available by integrating ROBOTS into their schematics. What high tech (computer) skills are they planning to train the employees? Possibly they can use robots and robotic cars to deliver my packages to the right address for a change, yes Debby Downer.
1
It is laughable to read "Economists dismiss those concerns, by and large, arguing that workers can grab higher-skilled jobs with better wages." Our economy is moving permanently to a structure which maximizes the consumer to worker ratio. There is simply no need for so many people to exist. There are no "higher value jobs" to be had. It is time we acknowledge this reality and start planning for an economy where we will have to hand over a fixed income (UBI) and healthcare to everyone. People should be freed from the tyranny of work in order to make a living and instead should spend majority of their learning new things or retraining or in continual education.
7
Well done, Amazon! I hope others will follow their lead.
1
Not everyone can write code or do IT work. It’s insanity to think so. I’ve worked with people who got into IT solely for the money but didn’t have the right mindframe and watched as they crashed systems and wrote code so poor that million dollar projects never went live. CEO’s chaff at the living wage salaries they have to pay IT workers so are trying to turn us into replaceable software “factory” workers but it will fail. IT and coding require a certain mindset and skill. Just as not everyone can be a doctor or famous artist, many people can’t think logically or troubleshoot issues.
95
@Paula
You are arguing against something that isn't in the article.
4
@JustInsideBeltway
Actually, she isn’t. The article is about whether training people to code or perform other hi tech tasks can prove to be a firewall against the eventual automation of jobs. She is arguing that many people simply don’t have the mindset, interest or ability to work in hi tech, which means that Amazon’s experiment is doomed for failure.
31
@Paula
"...CEO’s chaff at the living wage salaries they have to pay IT workers..."
Boeing paid programmers and data scientists $9 dollars per hour. Minimum wage for big employers in New York is $15 p.h.
Are you guys sure you want to retrain as data scientists?
2
I'm an Amazon shareholder and I think it's egregious that Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, yet Amazon workers are treated poorly.
$15/hr for backbreaking work doesn't seem enough. For example, the average Costco employee makes $21/hr. If Bezos released a couple bucks from his fortune, one made on the backs of these employees, he could raise the pay for Amazon workers to be comparable. And he could still be one of the richest people in the world.
What say you, Mr. Bezos?
139
@Roxy If you don't like the company, why on earth do you hold the stock? Being an owner of Amazon makes you just another greedy capitalist exploiting the workers, doesn't it?
15
@Roxy
Why are you comparing the minimum wage at one company to the average wage at another? Compare like to like. Minimum and average are two different things.
15
@Roxy - Minimum wage in Seattle is $15 an hour but most Amazon employees make well over that which is why our rents doubled almost overnight.
And Jeff recently built some multi-billion dollar indoor tropical forest so everyone could have a nice place to work. Must be nice to walk in from the Seattle winter to the Amazon forest in November.
Compare this to the average WalMart or average Target employee.
Oh, and according to what I'm finding online, the average pay at Amazon is quite a bit higher than the average pay at Costco.
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Costco_Wholesale_Company/Salary
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Amazon.com_Inc/Salary
7
A lot of people here are commenting that they are glad they are close to retirement age and that they're glad this isn't their problem. I would just remind you that robots don't pay into Social Security. Or Medicare. Nor do they have children who grow up and do so. We are literally discussing downsizing the need for the US labor force in ways that have never been tested before. If you think Bezos or Amazon shareholders care you are naive. If you think the US government has plan to address what will logically be a huge defecit of funds flowing into these programs - well, I'd like to see any indication of it. So what if they're retraining 1/3? 2/3rds aren't paying in just as Boomers start to collect. My 6 year old can do this math.
79
@Lauren - Your 6 year old does fractions already? Very impressive, indeed.
2
@tom harrison, these days I would be impressed if the typical American can make it through an entire book before giving up.
1
"Amazon to Spend $700 Million On BT-WOO (Busywork Transition-Worker Obsolescence Obfuscation) Scheme to Shore Up Crumbling Neoliberal Economic Model"
AP (The Anon Press)
In a historic joint private enterprise--government--mainstream news media endeavor, Jeff Bezos is donating the amount of money he earns while wiping himself annually to the largest BT-WOO program ever undertaken by a joint private enterprise-government collaboration. Mr. Bezos, a New Democrat in the model of Bill Clinton, explained the Clintonese rationale: "Our 3rd Way Religion, neoliberalism, which is the same as neoconservatism BTW, has always centered on the creed 'It is not from the generosity of the butcher, the baker, or the brewer that we get our dinner, but from their self-interest, coordinated by the invisible god-hand to feed us,' as handed down on Mount Chicago Economics-Goldman Sachs. Basically, this is involves professing to empower the American worker but actually conditioning him to be a malleable drone-consumer kept on a perpetual getting-and-spending treadmill to a) keep him out of trouble and b) exponentially multiply the wealth of plutocrats. Electorally, this scheme keeps Democrats in power by repudiating the explicit, out-and-out Hobbesianism-Social Darwinism of the Republican Party; its basic cathecism is 4 words: "Work Will Redeem Me." This scheme continues the Clintonian dignity of work and money principle "Work for those who can and will, prison for the others."
6
Take advantage of the training Amazon employees. Half of those trained will be out of a job in five years. Eventually Mr. Bezos will have a chip implanted and control the whole company through thoughts abs machines. By then the slogan will be:”Prime before dinner is served.” As long as your order is placed by noon.
3
Hmm...quite a leap from being forced to run around a warehouse to fill orders...a manager with a stopwatch near by to make sure you don’t “fall behind” , to software engineer. More lower paid employees are soon to bite the dust. After seeing how Amazon abused older workers in its “camper force program”, free pain pill dispensers hanging from the walls, I redoubled my determination never to shop there.
3
Automatic pin setters revolutionized bowling symbolizing comfortable middle class 1950’s leisure. Manuel pin setters suddenly obsolete but still could earn an honest living choosing amongst ample Union jobs such as driving trucks, working on a loading platform. Today no such comparable blue collar options thus generating seething anger, scapegoats, giving us trump.
9
They could save a lot of money if they replaced their CEO with automation.
6
Come on, Bezos. Use that money to clean out the GOP and Trump. Do something worthy for this country. You can afford to pour money into the state elections too. Help take back our democracy!
.
3
As a New Yorker, everyday I am glad we kicked Amazon to the curb.
6
I am 60 years old. I switched careers 20 years ago to work in IT. The switch was a natural one for me coming from biological research. I passed the A+ certification on my first try. I started over at the bottom of the salary ladder. I spent 13 years at a well known company. They downsized me 3 months shy of my 55th birthday. Since then finding a job has been next to impossible.
The biggest problems this country faces are what employers are doing to the economy and our morale when they refuse to hire older people or even younger people with experience. I've seen multiple ads with skills that are so disparate I wonder what or if the employer knows what they want in an employee. I've been on interviews where the interviewer sees that I'm not 30 and can't figure out what to ask me or worse, can't wait to get me out of the room.
There isn't a labor shortage in America. There's an employer shortage in terms of willingness to invest in, hire, and yes, really train people. That worked with the latter half of the baby boom generation but it's not going to work for the generations after. There are fewer of them and they've seen how we've been treated.
Being older doesn't mean we can't learn. It doesn't mean that we're stupid or not technologically savvy. It means that we've survived, worked hard and have something left to contribute. If only employers would recognize that and stop whining about the lack of suitable people.
7/11/2019 7:52pm
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@hen3ry
10-4 my wife faced that ( no pun )
I'll work as long as I can ...
7
@hen3ry Ageism is real, and killing us. Taking a step back to view the big picture, we now expect our population to school themselves at higher and higher levels; pay off the insane debt; while simultaneously buying cars and houses and all the stuff that keeps companies lie Amazon going; have kids, pay for childcare and save for their training and education; save for retirement that will keep them going 30 years... all in the same 25 - 30 year window. Because at 50 they will be an albatross - high wage, high healthcare, high benefits - and will be discarded. We will justify the economic decision by assuming that after 50, no one has a brain.
These people will need to earn and save all that, spend everything they can to keep others employed, all while competing for lower and lower wages driven by globalization and competing for fewer and fewer jobs driven by corporate consolidation and automation.
That's an equation that doesn't close, at least not without some sort of epic Malthusian interference.
12
@hen3ry Absolutely spot on! In news stories I still hear about older workers laid off during The Great Recession who STILL aren't working!
My neighbor is about 40, was a white collar worker until laid off. Has applied unsuccessfully for tons of jobs. His friend who works beer delivery recommended him - a step down for sure, but he's willing to do anything. Wasn't hired. The boss actually complained to the friend that he "can't find anyone to hire." The friend called him on it, and my neighbor finally got on. Works long hard hours, runs rings around the younger hires.
For 20 years I worked at an insurance company where we LOVED to hire older workers - exactly for the reasons you cited. As with any hire, careful screening pays off, and not a one of them were clunkers!
9
And 5 years from now, Amazon will be retraining 33,333 employees because the remaining 66,667 will too be automated. Then our economy will based on everyone driving each other to work and delivering food for each other. Oh wait, that too will be automated. Maybe everyone could do medical billing since the only thing that could never be automated is bureaucracy.
6
Maybe Amazon can start with training workers who deliver packages in Chicago to actually deliver them to the recipient, instead of leave them outside buildings on the street, or in lobbies of condos. This is one area the company has neglected big time.
1
@Muddlerminnow
It's not Amazon's fault most people are not home when a delivery is made. Nor do they have to have a live person take delivery (unless stipulated due to the product value by the seller) because if the box goes missing.... Amazon will make good on it as long as it was fulfilled by Amazon and not a 3rd party merchant.
By the way....Amazon gives you the option of having your package dropped at one of thousands of local storefront businesses that they contract to provide Amazon lock boxes. They also give you the option of picking your delivery day too.
5
I've been home, sent an alert delivery was made, and found the parcel on the floor of the next building over in my apartment complex. Sorry, close isn't good enough.
4
@Muddlerminnow
Ironically, I had an Amazon delivery today that was left outside my garage - when I got the email notification of the delivery, there was a picture attached of the box sitting there. First time I saw that!
The best we can do is buy local as often as possible, even as it gets harder and harder. (Say we who get our news from national companies, whether paper, online, or TV.)
There are still locally-owned coffee shops, liquor stores, and maybe grocery co-ops. If I don’t get books from the library, I have a locally-owned book-store. Also, check out ABE-books, an international consortium of independent book-sellers.
Electronics are almost impossible to buy except on-line or at a mega-store. The last locally-owned computer stores went out of business about 15 years ago (although there are a few small shops that get high-ratings, I can’t determine if they are part of a chain or franchise).
2
@Melvyn Magree
I too use and enjoy AbeBooks, the sad news, since 2008 they have been a part of Amazon.
3
The willingness of the New York Times to uncritically publicize these alleged schemes of generosity is hard for me to understand.
Didn’t Bezos pledge to donate one billion dollars to end homelessness? This was at the time when Bezos’s net worth was $128 billion so Bezos committed to spending a huge .8% of his net worth to solve the problem, leaving him a mere 99.2% of his $128 billion.
Google loudly announced a plan to spend ONE BILLION DOLLARS (in small print over 10 years) for the same cause without mentioning that they had $200 billion in cash alone at the time. Each year for the next 10 years they will spend or give away .5% of the cash (or less) that they have a hard time spending anyway. Thank you, thank you Google!
Amazon plans spending $700 million for training THEIR WAREHOUSE WORKERS (and in small print every other employee) in technology. Yippee! Of course, they don’t mention that most of their warehouse workers work for subcontractors who won’t be getting any of this money. And the warehouse workers walk 15 to 20 miles a day no matter who they work for (Amazon is too cheap to buy them all Segways). Yes walk 20 miles and then spend your evenings studying. Right. How much time will be allocated for sleep, bathroom breaks and Soylent Green injections?
26
Thank you. They promised $2 million for affordable housing in northern Virginia, aka, change from Jeff's couch cushion.
3
@sguknw - At the time Bezos pledged that money he realized he would soon be in divorce court and might have a smaller bank account. I think his ex-wife is now the 4th or 5th richest woman on earth.
5
As recently as last month, there were daily radio ads to hire Amazon drivers (as Amazon moves away from their USPS deal) - many of which are not full-time.
Why not hire the existing workers they are making obsolete...
Then again, these drivers will eventually become obsolete themselves if Amazon succeeds with its self-driving cars and drones.
3
@lm
Much of their deliveries under the AMZL shipping code now days are actually done through free-lance individuals who compete for delivery lots at their local Amazon distribution center. The program is called Amazon Flex. Items are shipped from all over the country to the nearest local distribution center, then batched with other packages to form a single chain of delivery of between 20 and 50 packages on a route and sequence pre-mapped by Amazon for the free-lancers to make it as short and timely as possible.
2
Even more "timely" when they dump all the packages for an entire apartment complex into one building.
2
Less than 50-years ago, we started college without calculators, computers to do four functions were the size of home freezers, most cars didn’t have AC and employees expected to retire from their employer. The keynote speaker at my graduation predicted that that we would have 6 or 7 employers during our careers. I had eight including one acquisition. Chemical engineers (my degree) are obsolete five years after graduation. Retraining is NOT a luxury, it’s a necessity.
7
Retrain one third; fire two thirds. Sounds like a plan. Andrew Yang is looking less crazy all the time. Might as well make Americans more comfortable in poverty. Technology-dominated companies and industries have no plan for most workers in their future except to shed them as rapidly as possible.
31
@RRI, Andrew Yang is the only person running for President, who has a clue.
2
Why doesn't our institutions have ongoing retraining programs in anticipation of the realignment in the work force? Seems like if Trump wants to help his base he'd do something to help them qualify for current jobs, not jobs in the history books.
4
He’d also rid us of H-1B visas.
4
@Tom. So what do you think the thousands of illegals will be doing?
1
Some people just love to hate Amazon.
American companies in dozens of industries have retrained workers, for decades, to meet ever changing methods and practrices.
Amazon's doing the same thing so their current $15/hr workers will be qualified for the new "work" that is already taking place.
Nobody likes change but change is inevitable and workers all across the globe have to adapt in order to survive. Extending a helping hand, as Amazon is doing, will help workers in the long run.
9
A helping hand?!?! Genuflect when you say that...
3
It's likely the one-third of the amazon employee base that is being retrained has a relatively safe job for the next year or two.
The rest of you should be seeking new employment... NOW!
7
I want to add one more thing based on the comments.
Too many of you are saying that the automated future is inevitable - it isn't. If people want to buy things online, ok, but why don't we tax these items so that buying at a brick and mortar store would be cheaper. That would be fair, in my opinion.
Stores, we could argue, are a public good, in that they allow interactions between community members, provide jobs, etc., so an online duty tax sufficient to make the price of anything you buy online higher than brick and mortar price would allow online purchasers to have their way and communities not becoming dead zones. The tax would have to be sufficiently high enough so that most people would shop at brick and mortar stores.
Now that's public policy for ya.
3
@Sirlar
Amazon has brought so much innovation to retail that we should hope it continues to lead. It has forced everyone else to up their game.
You're overlooking many factors. Here's just one: in a warming world, the efficiency of online ordering rather than driving to the store, not finding what you wanted so you have to drive around looking for it, then driving home, will become increasingly undesirable.
5
@Charley Darwin
If you want beautiful Lancaster to look like a dead zone, then fine, go with Amazon. Why aren't you willing to pay more for online if the tax preserves jobs and communities?
Ending global warming and brick and mortar stores are not mutually exclusive. Wind and solar for all energy, electric cars.
2
You realize that most brick and mortar stores have an online presence too. This plan would only take from one hand to give to the other. Online firms also create jobs.
In the immortal words of George Constanza: “what’s so great about mom and pop stores? If my mom and pop ran a store I definitely wouldn’t shop there!”
4
No more intelligent operator than Jeff Bezos. He won't give you a case of the "warm and fuzzies," but he ain't dumb neither. And yes, alas and alack, he tries make a buck. But he'll share the wealth with folks who add value.
2
His warehouse workers tell otherwise. Google it. Horrifying abuse of power is often justified by claiming those demanding more just aren’t “adding value.”
2
So where is the credit Bernie Sanders deserves for getting Bezos to commit to $15 an hour for warehouse workers? You mention other candidates for president but not the one who’s helped workers. NY Times
Coverage of the Sanders campaign is negative and bias. Do better!!
6
@Wheels411
Bernie Sanders - who has not created a single job in his long life - 'got' Jeff Bezos - who has created hundreds of thousands of jobs - to pay $15/hour?
How - exactly - did he do that?
8
@SteveRR The defenders of rapacious capitalists always praise them for creating jobs, as if employers wake up every morning wondering how many jobs they can create that day. Bezos, Amazon and every other company create only as many jobs as they have to, pay the employees as little as possible, and eliminate the jobs as soon as they can. Don't pretend that jobs are created from some noble humanitarian principle. Besides, Amazon has probably destroyed more jobs across the country than it has created.
15
@jrw
Ignoring the actual actual and empirical evidence that Amazon and Bezos do not 'have' to pay their workers $15 - there is no Federal nor State nor Municipal mandate.
Nor does either 'have' to retrain redundant workers.
And I am not sure how one goes about 'destroying' a job.
2
This kind of proves Andrew Yang’s point, doesn’t it? Why won’t anyone pay attention to him?
7
@Richard Purcell,
I pay attention to (and support) Yang, as do some of the other commenters.
However, the reason more people is combination of obliviousness and denial--some people genuinely don't know or think of this stuff, while others don't want to face the uncomfortable reality.
2
@Richard Purcell
Because he campaigns on one idea, and that one idea is simply terrible. The idea's intended effects are good, but the unintended consequences would most likely be devastating.
I am running for president based on a guaranteed income, even though unemployment is very low and many people are already sitting out of the job market even as the working age population is shrinking.
That will go nowhere.
2
Because the general public can’t separate UBI from its inflationary properties; rightfully so. What bargaining power do I have for the $12K/year that Yang is promising me if my landlord (and other service providers) know about it? They could increase rents by $12K/year. Sounds like a monetary gift to landlords.
1
As someone who works part time in one of the warehouses I only have good things to say about working for them.
3
@Jordan--how about saying a few of those things. I would like to hear more about the positive aspects of the warehouses.
7
People should be thankful that they’re getting trained rather than fired.
5
@Jesse Not just that, but greater automation and retraining will likely mitigate some of the horror stories we have been hearing about Amazons supply chain.
1
@Jesse How 'bout this? Billionaires should be thankful they can get people to do their work, without whom they would not be billionaires, and live in a society where they've convinced a large part of the populace to praise them for paying workers a magnificent $30,000 a year (assuming the worker is hired to put in a full 2000 hours) while they sit in an office with expensive artwork on the walls, each piece of which costs more than the year's wages they're paying, thinking up ways to increase their company's wealth. They're not doing that essential work, without which they would not be billionaires, but are raking in a thousand or two thousand times as much as those who do. Is $30,000 a living wage in Staten Island or, say, the East Village, even for a single person? It might pay the rent, and that's it. Well, not eating is a sure way to avoid obesity. People just don't see the silver lining of decades of worry and stress in everyday life that billionaires miss out on, not having to survive from paycheck to paycheck. Those unfortunate rich guys and gals: they should try living for decades on an income under $50,000 sometime, and enjoy those wonderful life experiences available only to those just eking out an existence. Even Bernie Sanders tells workers that all they have to do is write down those wonderful experiences, sell the text to Holt, and they too can be millionaires, if not billionaires. Is it any wonder Trump got elected by pretending not to be who he is?
2
Why can't US do like France and tax these huge tech giants (3% by France) on its foreign profits as well while charging 73% tax (based on calculation that shows most benefit for both the country & the company to grow) on its domestic profit?
Worse, instead of doing it, US politicians are more than willing to give only lip service (for public consumption) and in reality, protecting such big industries, so long they donate to their party fund and election campaign.
On the other hand, many huge global tech giants like Amazon, claiming to be American company, not only paid zero federal tax but got a tax payers' money as a bonus for "evading" tax- https://is.gd/ST2axA
Paid lobbyists of these companies are now coercing many local/state/Federal Govt to even do many infrastructure work for them, with tax payer's money, in simple verbal assurance that it might, just might, help them to invest there. And many Govts do fall for such lure.
7
@bonku
Some local governments just might want an excuse to funnel money to cronies, so indulge not only companies that offer questionable promises to build a long-term, high-employment facility there but also obvious parasites (with respect to public money) like the owners of professional sports teams.
1
Read The Warehouse by Rob Hart. This book is basically about working in an Amazon fulfilment factory.
2
>2019
>"retraining" warehouse workers
If we are literally talking about teaching them how to "code" in software with GUIs and simplified human friendly syntax (eg Excell).... maybe.
If we are talking about retraining warehouse workers to write C++ or python for application in data science?
The premise is flawed. "Data scientists" typicall have a masters at least, with a related undergrad degree.
The real solution?
Fundamental shift in bachelors level education away from 4 year to interchangeable 2+2.
2 years basic scientific or engineering education foundation....
Then go on to finalize in whatever fields you want. You might do this MULTIPLE TIMES through your career!
The base 2 years should be built into high school or seamlessly tagged on.
Then you go for 2 years and certify in CS or CE.... or EE.... or other STEM field that does not necessitate a lot of specifics (exclusions: biochem/chem/materials, biology, physics, certain maths)
At the end of the day thats what this is all about.
Computer science. Computer, software, and electrical engineering (excluding solid state physics focus). Even certain mechanical engineering focus (robotics)
The expertise of the new economy
Competent data scientists are mathematicians who know the tools and practicalities of the trade
Seems like this is a press release to get political praise
@Jarl
You really think that one of the smartest companies in the world has not thought this through?
Of course they are not going to offer a computer science degree to hourly workers that might have had problems with HS math but maybe to an employee with a partial uni degree
Here are some of the other jobs they are offering for retraining:
data mapping specialist, data scientist, solutions architect and business analyst, as well as logistics coordinator, process improvement manager and transportation specialist
Note that they are very specialized and can be offered to folks who don't need four years of uni.
2
My guess is that Amazon will develop software that is easier for the end-user to to master and then train their employees to use it. Having been a programmer for many years, I can tell you that software development has gotten ridiculously convoluted. A real goal would be to develop software development tools that would emphasize ease of use.
3
Presidential candidate warned us of this on the debate stage. It will only multiply quarter over quarter now.
4
While this is happening portions of our government along with their cronnies in the media are advocatikg for more illegal immigrantion knowing very well that eventually the economy will slow down and lower skilled jobs will become even more obsolete with the rise of A.I. What is.so inhumane about wanting to take care of your own country first?
5
Amazon seems to be lining up with the internal training initiatives of other tech companies. AT&T started a "reskilling" program in 2016, but the jury is still out on its impact. Good luck to all of the Amazon folks... make sure you learn some skills that will help you escape from Amazon!
2
Never forget what my Public School third grade teacher said to us about Automation! It will be your greatest competition for jobs when you grow up! Didn’t take it seriously! I was eight years old! 1959.
5
@Counter Measures---You may not have taken it seriously, but your children and grandchildren will.
2
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
--Martin Niemoller
3
Funny their was a time when people where up in arms about walmart and the damage it was doing to downtowns and mom/pops shop, even when we seen this was happening we still shopped at walmart, the problem with Amazon it is more dangerous then walmart but we just don't see it or want to see and here we still shop at amazon as it makes billions and pays no taxes and doesn't that it doesn't pay any, besides it fools every cities that has a amazon whatever for millions more in tax break for a company that really doesn't hire anymore. Time to wake up and stop using any amazon product, it also time to break up this company before it gets any bigger.
6
@Joe Breaking up Amazon is more than warranted. Read this to find out why the current thinking on anti-trust is outdated:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
2
Are they also going to start paying a living wage? Medical insurance? Try living on $15 an hour ($31,200/year) in Seattle.
7
Without retraining their income will soon be zero. That’s worse.
1
It seems everyone but its customers criticizes Amazon. Amazon is a smashing success because it’s customers I love it.
7
@Joe G Sure, who cares about the effects of Amazon on our economy, markets and politics when you can save a nickel on cat food. It's all good!
Read this if you care about more than your own consumption:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
Society will use the most efficient system for resource distribution that is technically available. It is more efficient to have one truck (or other device) deliver to multiple consumers than to have multiple consumers drive to a distribution location. This efficiency is supported by technologies of increasing power such as information systems and robotics.
Politicians who lament this development seem to think a return to a slower more muscle oriented system would be good. It would not be good and even if if were good it would not work. Capitalism will play itself out with rapid technological change and rapid (short term) investments.
Politicians would better serve society if they became planners instead of boosters for archaic ideologies such as nationalism and the private ownership of the capital. This capital is needed to make a better economic system that distributes goods efficiently and fairly.
The long term future for jobs is no jobs. Even work requiring human brains will be replaced by more efficient and accurate systems. Humans should plan for a life free of economic necessity. Politicians can make the transition easier by recognizing this future and planning for it.
This future is global and must address basic issues such as optimum population size, weapons and environmental pollution.
The main question now is: Will people embrace this future and ease into it or will they let the current unplanned society destroy its environment and itself?
2
The cynic in me sees this as a shot across the bow at better paid tech workers out there. Amazon is telling the world it will grow its own tech workforce, insulating them from the cost of meeting wage demands as more and more jobs are tech related.
@From Where I Sit--The competition for tech workers in all industries will be great. It is the English majors that need to worry.
1
The change brought about by our hyper-capitalism is like the weather; people talk about it but can't do anything about except perhaps at the very margins. Thus, either we adjust to these changes or get steamrolled by them.
3
I haven't seen the figures but I'm sure that the net loss of jobs in the retail industry is several times greater than the 300,000 jobs that Amazon claims to have created. In addition, when a brick and mortar store closes, there is a negative multiplier effect, so the total job loss is much greater. For every job Amazon creates, perhaps 3 or 4 jobs are lost in retail.
We can't take at face value that Amazon is creating jobs. Wal-Mart killed mom and pop stores across America, but at least some jobs remained in the community. Amazon, on the other hand, is not creating any jobs in communities.
Notice in the article that all the tech jobs Amazon has such as data scientists, data mapping specialists etc. - the purpose of those jobs is to figure out ways to reduce labor time and labor costs for their operations.
Fight back by not purchasing anything on Amazon. Maybe pay a little extra at your brick and mortar store. Please.
10
At least on the surface it sounds like Amazon is trying to do something right by retraining workers rather than just replacing them.
1
First response is always negative when a robot will soon replace a human; however, employees of Amazon should count their blessing. At least A is willing to acknowledge it needs to upgrade their employees' skills and are willing to retrain them. So, for you guys in the warehouse with a high school education, or less, be grateful. More importantly, get out there and learn that new trade. Remember, only YOU can make YOU successful.
2
They’re going to retrain warehouse workers to be what? Software engineers? Human resource professionals? Maybe they can find creative ways to fire each other.
6
They are going to retrain them to stay employed
1
Amazon is a successful company that will continue to grow. What interests me is that people in the future will need to know different skills for most jobs. Since technology has made an impact in the company people will need to learn new and different skills to be able to work. I think that in the future, jobs wouldn't be as hard. Why I think that is because the technology has a big impact in society. So robots and different automation technology will replace many workers. I was interested in this article because Amazon will be the cause to retrain workers. At the same time, it could bring more opportunities. If workers learn new high technology skills in the future, there will be more job offerings. Another positive thing about Amazon is that customers get things quick and easy. When customers order a product, the product gets delivered to their front door. The item or items they purchased could get delivered within seven hours! I understand why workers would be retrained. Not only would it be useful to learn new skills to work at Amazon but in other companies too. In the future, there will definitely be more companies like amazon where you would need to know those skills. If we really think about when workers would be restrained, it isn't that long. This means that in 6 years there might be many differences. I believe that companies such as Amazon, will make things even more easier than what it is to customers. This may or may not be a good impact in the future.
1
Let's hope they also have buying robots as well.
Without real customers you can have as much merchandise as you want, but you won't sell it.
3
This is why we need to crack down on immigration, particularly the illegal kind, as more and more of the jobs low-skilled laborers used to be needed for are mechanized. The remaining menial jobs are soon going to be needed to keep the left half of the American bell curve constructively busy. Otherwise, we’re going to end up with a massive number of people that we need to support in idleness, which is not a recipe for social stability.
4
@Z97
Americans wont do those jobs. Period. Not today. Not tomorrow.
Need someone who will just do whatever you ask in construction/janitorial? Clean the bathroom one day, stack wood the next, unload boxes the next, drive to the dump, paint a house the next?
Americans wont do that job for the labor rate that makes it economical (~$20/hr)
Americans wont pick strawberries for $25/ hour (yes. $25/hour. Look it up. That is the real labor rate. More experirnce, $30/hr. Real life. Actual real jobs paying that much)
This is the fundamental conservative lie, that conservatives believe:
That if there were far fewer immigrants... "the jobs would pay more" and "americans would do them"
Aside from the obvious absurdities, this comes straight from the mouths of conservatives who advocate rock bottom or NO minimum wage, elimination of traditional pension compensation (conservatives love the idea of the "401k as an altermative" for 1 simple reason: 401k means individuals trading securities, which means more customers for Wall Street, the real GOP constituency)
Heres the thing
If we teleported into an alternate universe with fewer immigrants, it would mean EVERYTHING is significantly more expensive (notably anything touched by immigrant labor: construction and food topping the list).
In other words? It would mean more inequality.
Houses, even in Texas! Would be more expensive to buy, and only the very wealthy could afford strawberries... or meat or fresh produce
6
I’d start with restricting H-1B visas rather than the folks clamoring to work in restaurant kitchens or pick crops.
5
@Jarl, yes, the use of often illegal immigrants willing to work at sub-American wages does keep prices for food and construction artificially low, but the costs saved are not so much saved as moved around. All those underpaid workers then need to rely on safety-net programs to support their families. The real cost of those cheap strawberries is then spread back to society at large. The only unqualified winners in this scenario are the employer class.
1
Alternate title suggestion: Amazon is Laying Off Two Thirds of its Workers as Machines Continue to Reshape the American Labor Market. Just a thought.
13
@Joe Smith
It happens. Most businesses cannot be as automated as a factory or a distribution center. Such places are
a fixed target for sensors and data collection.
Amazon can work to automate its business and lay some people off, or lay everyone off when its rivals automate and under cut them until they go out of business.
1
How many of the people performing paid labor for Amazon are actually “employees” for the purposes written about here? My understanding is that each of their major distribution centers are staffed by a number of temp agencies and their delivery network is entirely made up of independent firms. In other words, are those we imagine to be covered by this plan actually the target of Bezos’ generosity?
7
We have a contractor that delivers for Amazon in our neighborhood. I have seen him driving on the wrong side of the road, speeding, running stop signs, making illegal U-turns, racing up private driveways, etc. Maybe Amazon could start its training program with some lessons in safe, legal driving.
3
That behavior is more likely due to the pressure to complete a high number of deliveries in a limited period of time.
7
This article reads as though Amazon wrote it themselves. We all now know that Amazon's second HQ was a publicity stunt. We'll see what actually materializes, after the vanishing act of the so-called New York HQ location. Amazon may or may not be retraining 100K employees or have 20K openings. They're so concerned with maintaining their mystique that PR and reality blend together to create a semi-fictional narrative. In this Trumpian world, truth has become a far more important commodity. That includes asking tough questions of those companies featured in articles in the NYTimes. From what I can tell, no such questioning occurred with this article.
22
Bring this company up! It is a monopoly. Bust it open.
3
I think I have purchased several things from Amazon, that's it. It's weird, why do people buy so much stuff from them? Do they not realize they are feeding a monster? You save a little money and are creating a future crisis. Win win for billionaires and oligarchs.
4
@JK I buy things from Amazon that I can't find anyplace else. Usually, I have tried to by whatever it is at a store or stores, but it is just easier to find and buy on Amazon. Most times, I have to pay more than I would like, but it is cheaper than gas driving around to get something the store says online that it has and then is not there when I go to get it. The other thing, is inexpensive used books. I've tried to help keep Barnes and Noble in business, but they only have new ones and their prices are double what I can get from Amazon. I also have to drive a 38 mile trip to the nearest store.
6
@JK
I do most of my shopping on Amazon. I'm disabled and brick and mortar shopping is close to impossible for me. I do shop at other online stores, but Amazon's customer service is way ahead of other online sources, and the variety makes my life easier.
If I weren't able to shop online I wouldn't be able to live on my own. I'm also able to live in a very low cost rural area (the total cost of my house was less than a down payment in an urban area) because I can have the goods I purchase delivered to my door.
The deliveries I receive are brought by UPS/FedEx trucks that are already on the road, so my energy footprint is smaller than if I was driving 70 miles to the nearest shopping areas.
3
@grmadragon try www.bookfinder.com
1
Presidential candidate Andrew Yang warned us of this on the debate stage already. No one is paying attention to this except for him.
7
Gosh, they're going to be saving even more money after the employee re-training, but will continue to resist taxes and still pay many of those workers less than middle class wages.
I know some of the attorneys who work for Amazon--I knew them when the were tough partners at two of the world class law firms here in Seattle. The only thing that will make Amazon change is legislation. Their legal professionals simply do their job--which is to interpret current rules and legal codes to Amazon's advantage.
I work across the street from one of Amazon's complexes. The sidewalks here sure are clean, and I appreciate that! Much more clean than anywhere else in downtown Seattle.
2
“The company said its fastest-growing skilled jobs over the past five years include data mapping specialists, data scientists, security engineers and logistics coordinators.”
Yikes. Those sound like some dull, soul-draining careers.
7
These jobs pay very well and require education.
6
Well, they better pay well because the poor souls that get steered into that drab work will need extra cash to pay their ungodly costly student loans.
5
That’s why Amazon pays them. If you want amusement then go to Disneyland.
1
Did anyone else notice that Amazon's Vice President of People Operations said that the retraining would allow employees to find jobs at other companies? That seems like a strange thing to say.
1
Thad,
Automation usually means fewer workers unless the added productivity expands sales volume.
Job changes are a fact of life and people need to embrace that. In addition, people are going to have to move for job opportunities. Staying in one place forever is no longer a guarantee.
States and localities need to work hard to make sure their place is evolving and staying competitive
4
@Thad Employees will be more receptive and eager to cooperate with the training.
2
@Practical Thoughts
I live in Quebec where we think mostly in French but with a great deal of American and European thinking.
The growth of cities began in the 19th century even as crafts people decried the Industrial Revolution that was going to replace humans in workplace with machines.
Computers are now way beyond the machine age we watch as they become ever more sentient.
They will demand more and more human care for at least a generation.
Our government economists are not ideologues they draw their conclusions from studying data, their obligation only to truth.
We are looking at a generation of worker shortages worldwide and here in Quebec everybody is hiring.
Our center right government is committed to green and the economists they listen to are also committed to green.
We have real problems that will rid us of any need to adapt but "evolving and staying competitive" is an oxymoron.
Darwin talked about survival by adaptation not survival of the fittest.
I cannot understand people who believe what they are supposed to believe rather than look at the facts.
When was the last time in America that supply didn't exceed demand? We will decide whether there will be job shortages or worker shortages it is part of the Social Contract. Even continuing to allow the 1% to decide it is our choice. We are unworthy of our name, Homo Sapiens. Indeed?
1
Interesting.
My son is working for USG (formally US Gypsum, but that sounds ... like something that might be confused with asbestos) on the order fulfillment side.
They are rolling out a new integrated platform for coordinating shipments from dozens of plants to their final destinations, and indeed the people in those plants and the warehouses need to learn the new system ... or maybe for the first time a real system.
While it is tricky, they still want people who know the product and not just what a screen says.
4
@John Hanzel
Thank you,
I don't understand America and its belief system. America is far from full the data suggests you will need at least 30M new Americans this decade just to maintain population.
We live at a time when social policy dictates too many workers for too few jobs or too many jobs for too few workers.As soon as England and the USA decide where they're going the world's liberal democracies will get back to the negative interest rates that may address inequality and climate change. Sweden's -.25% Prime tell us all we need to know of successful liberal democracy where supply far exceeds demand and we borrowers are far more valuable than creditors.
1
How are you going to support Universal Basic Income if you don't have a lot of automation to lower the costs of goods and services enough to make a basic income viable?
And how far will UBI go if you don't control the costs for healthcare, education, and child care? I believe there are a number of presidential candidates who are talking about those issues.
4
@Stan Sutton
Before Trump the world was dealing with the reality and sanity of negative interest. Today Europe's prime is 0% and Sweden's is -.25%.
We are awash in money and in a world of intellectual property there is far more money than things to buy.
I am Asperger's but I think I am sane.
Our Quebec economy generated a 4.4 billion dollar surplus in 2018. A worker shortage for a generation. We have as close to a Universal Basic Income without calling it a UBI.
I don't understand why you never ask the question the data makes clear.
How much does it cost each and every taxpayer not having a UBI ?
Am I wrong but seems to me that the 0% the rich pay for money and double digit interest consumers pay are about to collide with a really loud bang and far less freedom.
Paying every American $1500 a month makes sense. Data says productivity increases and the savings far exceed the cost.
4
You are not only sane but correct.
1
Retraining should be renamed continuing education. The pace of change is much faster.
All companies and entities should be doing this. It’s the key to a strong economy in the 21st and 22nd century.
2
We should be taxing those robots that replace humans in order to keep the government funded.
8
We should be thanking Amazon for its leadership in training workers for the future. That job should be done in large part by K-graduate school educational institutions. Instead, Trump wants his base to focus on traditional manufacturing jobs. DeVos is in completely over her head when it comes to the future of education which is not surprising given she's never spent a single day in any classroom as a professional. The United States is lagging in its preparation for the next few decades of change while South Korea, Germany, and Singapore are forging ahead and China is not far behind. In ten years, I can hear the next great American chant, we're number seven, we're number seven.
10
The Amazon model of consumerism is appealing to both the busy and the lazy.
The prospect of automation taking over much of the labor presently performed by people leads to eliminating consumers who are needed for commerce.
This is a non-functional model in a capitalistic society.
6
@Larryr
Well, to be more accurate, automation is not "taking over". It is being integrated into systems to do many menial tasks that well payed people should not be doing and don't want to do.
5
I am ashamed to acknowledge that I am a frequent Amazon shopper. They make it too easy for me. I am disabled; I can’t roam the aisles of stores looking for what I need. Plus inventory in retail stores is quite diminished, and more expensive than Amazon for the most part. But the biggest plus for me is that they deliver my stuff right to my front door.
I am already seeing automation in one area on Amazon. If I need to chat with Customer Service, I am no longer directly connected to a rep. I have to interact with an AI which is trying to figure out what I need. It makes useless recommendations and then thinks my problem is solved. I have to fight with it to get connected to a human to help me.
4
@Jet Phillips The easiest way to get in touch with people at Amazon is to go through the Amazon Prime app. If you go through the website, it is almost impossible to find the info to contact a person.
The idea of re-training existing employees, instead of firing and hiring, is a breath of fresh air.
14
Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang is the only one talking about this issue. His UBI proposal is starting to make a lot of sense.
8
@Manville Smith: Yang is talking about giving everyone a basic income (UBI). Amazon is talking about preparing people for jobs--especially jobs of the future. The issue addressed in this article is job training. Is Yang talking about that?
4
@Stan Sutton Yes, Yang addresses this extensively. All of the re-training efforts have yielded very poor results. He cites several studies that document this with hard data. He led a non-profit that tried to bring jobs back to areas that had been hit by outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and has a lot of first-hand experience in this particular area. I suggest you check his website out. It's all there.
2
@Stan Sutton,
Yang is in support of retraining but also recognizes that there are limits: e.g. it's not realistic to expect someone with a high-school education to go back to school to get a graduate degree in engineering or computer science.
Education helps some people but unfortunately is insufficient. If predictions about the disruption from automation are remotely accurate, we're going to have no choice but to eventually implement something like UBI or a job-guarantee, to avoid having the social fabric of this country ripped apart.
6
Short term answer to a long term problem:
When automation can do every human task inside 50 years, what happens to a system built entirely on jobs?
You can only retrain employees so long before systems come along that don't need human components. And it's a foregone conclusion... what then?
18
@J Mayhem and upheaval that will destroy economies and set us back decades if not centuries would be my guess. Automation problem solved.
2
@J
This seems like a long way off. No one wants to pass social programs to address mass unemployment when there is no mass unemployment. Worry about it when it happens.
After watching another "Jeopardy" player cost himself a win and over $10k by making a terrible wager in Final Jeopardy, we can create at least one new career for humans: "Jeopardy" wagering coach.
@J
Bring back the 'guaranteed annual income' experiment idea and refine it.
When in place in the Province of Ontario - seemed to be working.
Just a thought.
The fact is that it will be impossible to employ a significant percentage of our citizens in the near future because of automation. The sooner we accept this as a nation the sooner we can develop a system where everyone receives a basic living income paid for by a fair taxation system. This new world is inevitable and refusing to accept it will either delay an equitable solution or will permanently consign tens of millions of people to a life of hopelessness and poverty .
41
There is nothing more hopeless that a person who does not work for something.
3
@Smith
There could be a new animated film series: "The Secret Life of Humans". People seem to forget the cultural importance of work.
2
This is why Bill Gates is correct. We need to apply a VAT to every commercial entity that utilizes robots. These workers need to have access to training so that they have a chance in the future.
6
@Stewart This is what Andrew Yang is proposing. The only presidential candidate who sees this issue clearly and is proposing a viable solution.
2
@Manville Smith: Andrew Yang was the only man at the most recent Democratic primary debate to not wear a tie. I’m sorry, that shows a lack of respect towards the process and the American public. If you want to sit at the grownups’ table, dress like a grownup.
1
@Jet Phillips If this is what you consider to be a significant issue, you are more superficial than the average teenager. I say this as a 60+ year old boomer. None of the women wore a tie. To (significantly) paraphrase MLK-I am much more concerned about the content of his mind than the nature of his clothing (as long as it is clean).
3
This is the kind of effort the US and individual states should be encouraging employers to take...and that the government should invest in as well.
4
The only Democratic presidential candidate talking about the impending unemployment crisis caused by automation is Andrew Yang. It’s the central part of his platform. And yet other candidates and the media wants to waste time on squabbles about bus policy from 40 years ago.
90
Isn't AI and automation a wonderful thing? We seem to blindly accept the notion that if something CAN be automated or outsourced to a robot or software, it SHOULD be automated or outsourced. The social implications are enormous: how many robot maintainers will we need, versus the number of (for example) warehouse stockmen? How many people to oversee self-checkout registers versus the number of cashiers? Who's going to employ all these newly discarded workers, and to do what? Maybe I'm being shrill, but I see serious social dislocations coming if we continue on this blind path to automation.
33
@Jim R. - So your suggestion is that even though the technology exists to make a product, or provide a service, far more efficiently, quickly, and cheaply, employers should simply stick with human employees because "it's the right thing to do", and meanwhile get run over by the competition? Good luck with that argument. There are obvious downsides to this trend, but you are trying to argue against the inevitable. You want businesses to have socialized business models? That's not the way it works.
23
@Character Counts- I just want business to think more broadly, and putting one's customer base out of work is something they should factor into their decision-making process. And that in no way implies a socialized business model.
How old are you? I'm in my 50s and won't be directly affected by these changes. But if you are in your 30s or younger, or have kids, watch out. Capitalism, business and profit are tools to advance society; they are not the objective themselves, at least from a societal perspective.
14
@Jim R.
I just don't understand what capitalism looks like if a majority don't have capital to spend. I think most companies absolutely plan to automate to the fullest extent possible. Who's going to have money?
3
Perhaps they could retrain their logistics drivers to deliver a package to the correct address.
After being an Amazon customer for ages, last month I decided never to use them again due to these unqualified and apparently unsupervised drivers.
11
@Herb: I frequently have the same problem with Amazon Carrier deliveries. The Amazon Carrier vans have GPS, so it must be that some drivers are too careless or lazy. I’m sure there are plenty of other folks who’d like to have their job.
2
@Herb, Oh like the 60-something that had 50 packages on a Sunday to deliver? I felt very sorry she still had to work, and her car looked like it was ready to give up the ghost.
3
GPS is only as good as the underlying data. I’ve been told I’m outside a business I know well when I’m as much as a 1/4 mile away. Local geo info can be flawed.
3
Pulling out of New York was one of the smartest things - and there are a lot of smart things - which Amazon has ever done.
New York is now represented on the floor of Congress by one of the same people involved in the Amazon negotiations...go figure.
5
The machines will do the work more cheaply so goods become more affordable to consumers who are losing their jobs to automation. We better pray to our Gods that money falls from the sky such that we can still consume so that we keep the economy going. If we don't the owners of our government will really be mad about our lack of work ethic and loyalty to our country.
22
These companies get many local and state tax incentives, so my tax bill goes up. And yet they want not just hard workers but they want skilled hard workers. If you are taking taxpayer money then you should do your best to provide reasonable employment opportunities for all members of the community. I admire employers, who make an effort to hire those who have disabilities that require them to take a little longer to complete a task. When possible, it is good for everyone to work. And it teaches the rest of us compassion when the a person who is challenged has a name.
9
People beware. Tech jobs are not great and if you choose this industry you will be asked to move over when the next cheap thing comes along. After 20 years here I have had enough of chasing big ideas with small returns that are unfulfilling personally or financially
21
Schools need to put a lot more emphasis on skills that technology hasn't duplicated. Emphasizing skills that machines do better is not a winning strategy.
Higher order thinking and social/emotional intelligence can keep humans relevant in the Smart Machine Age. But the future of technology is unpredictable, so people will need to be resilient, lifelong learners so that they can adapt to the workplaces of the future.
8
@David having recently retired from a 40 year career in the computer industry as a software developer, evolving with the times, I'd have to say that fewer than 1% of the population has the aptitudes and mental abilities required to be successful. It requires life long skills in self-education, as I spent my entire career learning new technologies as they came along. My formal education back in the early 1970s just got me started, back then it was punch cards and FORTRAN programs that could run in 16K of core memory.
The majority of physical laborers working warehouse jobs simply are not able to be educated to the level required to do 'big data mapping' or whatever. that's post-graduate level stuff.
24
@David,
The notion that education is some magic bullet that protects you from being automated out of existence is 20th Century thinking.
While more education is better than less education, the reality of 21st Century is that you are not necessary immune anymore because you have an education.
With respect to automation's capabilities, I suggest you take a look at what's already out there, as well as what is in the pipeline. If you do you will likely discover that automation is going to render obsolete a lot of jobs that currently require higher levels of education and may pay reasonably well.
9
@left coast geek
I agree that it isn't reasonable to expect the vast majority of displaced warehouse workers to become software developers. However, there will still be jobs for humans. For example, healthcare is growing (particularly as baby boomers age) and education is mostly safe. However, these jobs require social/emotional and thinking skills that aren't being taught in schools.
I don't subscribe to the dystopian future where we'll have mass unemployment. The economy is 71% consumer spending and unemployed people don't have much money to spend. Most people will find something, but people who are prepared will supervise the machines and those who aren't will be supervised BY the machines (which is already happening).
1
Amazon won't win public opinion on this issue either. There is constant criticism that the warehouse work is mindless or too difficult:
" @Jacquie Age discrimination is already a thing within their warehouses. Their demanding rate system puts older employees in particular at increased risk of losing their job or working in a perpetual state of fear of losing their job. Plenty of older employees quit in their first few months because they know they can't keep up or don't want to try to keep up and live with the aches and pains that come with it."
Logic would bring any company to consider a robotic solution if the volume and growth justified it. The fact that Amazon will foot the bill for reeducating the displaced workforce is a huge positive. What the beef here?
6
It isn’t discrimination if an employee cannot keep up with the demands of the job description. Should there be 70 year old construction workers?
Change is part of modern day life. Frankly, I enjoy the convenience that Amazon and other online retailers provide for many items. My electric razor finally died the other day: had a new one the next day and didn't even have to step out the door. My printer was low on ink - again I just ordered it and had it in less that 24 hours. Wanted some new socks that were promptly delivered. The are some things that I will will continue to visit Brick and Mortar stores to shop for such as food and most clothing items. Every item I can purchase online save me gas (and no additional CO2 pollution) and the hassles of parking and checkout lines. People entering the job market need to realize that constant change is part of part of life today and develop the skills to adapt; other wise they risk becoming an obsolete person. Tough thing to say? Just think of those unemployed coal miners expecting their old jobs will suddenly reappear. It's not going to happen; there are cheaper and and more environmentally friendly alternatives available.
7
@Richard B. Someone else is creating the CO2 emissions delivering to you, unless that package comes though US Posyal Service, they are out and about anyway.
6
This is a $700 million ad campaign / insurance policy against losing the public subsidies that are so central to Amazon’s insatiable need for growth.
Amazon’s goal is to create a narrative through which it can remind the public (more precisely, elected officials and unelected local and regional economic development elites) that because they spent some seemingly large amount of money on providing opportunities for retraining, every worker adversely impacted by a layoff deserved what they got. It takes the emphasis off the creation of a large pool of losers by inventing a rhetorical means through which to label the losers as the lazy, unworthy poor - not as more dead canaries in the coal mine.
“We spent $700 million dollars on retraining!” Bezos will indignantly exclaim when challenged about cutting jobs in communities that paid into his jobs-for-subsidies extortion scheme (never mind that this is but a fraction of the public subsidies the company has amassed over the years for its promises of “job creation”). “We offered them the OPPORTUNITY to apply for other positions at the company, but they did not have the requisite skills. It breaks my heart that they did not take better advantage of the opportunities we so generously provided them!”
Some might call it Social Darwinism, but there is plenty of room for everyone in Bezos’s imaginary space colonies!
17
Isn't the implication that Amazon will be firing 2/3 of its employees?
34
@Chris
I know right? Amazon will 'retain' 1/3 of their workers. Strange wording choice (intentional I'm sure). Perhaps this came directly from Amazon PR.
6
If you believe you are saving money when you purchase stuff in their website, you are completely wrong!
1st Prices are not significant lower compare to certain local retailers;
2nd Local business help your local government pay bills. Less business done locally means the residents will see their taxes increasing or experience public services with lower quality.
3rd Less jobs locally
Where I live there are no more stores. Only a few restaurant… Our taxes are going through the ROOF!
30
@Kindle I don't shop on Amazon to save money. I use it because it's convenient, easy, and a huge time-saver. I'm guessing many other Amazon shoppers would say the same.
13
Patronizing local businesses only means you’re helping pay for someone else’s kids to go to college.
That's $7000 per worker. Assuming Mr. Bezos knows what he's doing (and he's gone from middle-middle class to richest man in the world in 25 years), it sounds like a great investment.
Yes, this wave of automation is a greater threat to the need for human labor than earlier waves. Nobody has the answer. I'm in favor of people who think about it and try to do something about it.
Dan Kravitz
7
@Dan Kravitz. Makes me wonder why the push for more low skilled immigrants from the democrats.
1
Only candidate Andrew Yang is provide solutions to the AI and lost of working class jobs. Re-training success rate will work up to a point, depending on many factors including the retraining programs, actual jobs being displaced, and the background workers. There needs to be a holistic review on retraining due to AI. See Andrew Yang's policies / platform. Not Right, Not Left, But Forward.
14
Hmmmm...interesting timing. Just a few days ago, John Oliver did an exposé on Amazon's evidently poor record of employee treatment. It makes one wonder if Amazon execs may be deciding it's not only costly to pay workers' salaries/benefits, but also introduces unnecessary, poor PR?
6
A step in the right direction. For smaller companies, this kind of retraining should be federally subsidized
3
@J Our taxes should subsidize the costs of Amazon's outplacement services?
Does this automation is really necessary? I think this is just an answer to a potential strike on "primer day".
Reality is they don't need workers in the operational level. They already have the technology (robots) to replace humans. They don't fire everybody there because of the negative impact it would cause to their image/ brand.
3
I've never known a company who "automated" a system, retrained personnel or even simply just bought a computer whose aim was other than to eventually fire people through that automization, retraining or computer acquisition.
12
Is this something like 'today you were told by the bloody machine what to do and where to go to move or make your package, and next year, after retraining, you'll be a programmer and direct innumerable robots working quietly tirelessly for Amazon and US people'? Yeah, sure, sounds believable.
More likely round of layoffs at the first suitable opportunity.
Not much different form what will be happening wherever possible, and in near future.
7
While I have mixed feelings about Andrew Yang, he seems to be the only presidential candidate that "gets it" when it comes to dealing the consequences of automation.
It's not just fast-food jobs or other jobs people like to look down on that are going to be affected by automation--it's coming for jobs that are currently well paying and require more education. If you think otherwise take a look at what's already out there--there's AI that can manage assets for a fraction of the cost of a human money manager and technology that can do a lot of the legal discovery done by human lawyers, to name a few examples--or what various technology companies are working on.
While nobody against retraining in principle, the problem with retraining in practice is that it takes anywhere from several months to sometimes several years to complete. Spending several years getting a degree is gamble because what you retrained for may or may not be in demand by the time you finish.
Although retraining can help some people, the ramifications of automation are more complicated and difficult than retraining alone can solve.
36
@Louis So far, retraining programs have been miserable failures. There is a wave of automation about to hit us in the next decade. Traditional jobs that support the working and middle class will simply evaporate: Retail jobs, Truck Drivers, Call Center workers, you name it.
Yang has proposed some solutions. They are likely nowhere close to perfect, but I think he has identified the problem and recognizes its importance.
6
It isn’t the government’s function to interfere in the reality of the free market nor to hold my hand in difficult times. In a capitalist economy, there will be winners and losers. It is entirely up to those involved to look out for themselves. I don’t have the aggressive personality nor the business degre taht my boss has. I also don’t have a house, a car or take vacations because I haven’t earned them.
if only my right honorable friends who railed against walmart would wake up to an even more sinister giant corporation.....
i won't hold my breath though......
11
“When automation comes in, it changes the nature of work but there are still pieces of work that will be done by people”.
What a joke.
They said that at our local Key Food, in fact they said no one would be fired, when they installed first one then six auto-payment cash registers.
Now there is one payment line with a person, and one check-out manager - and 6 or so of these annoying robots.
No doubt people were laid off.
The company lied.
It’s unpleasant to be shop there.
Amazon would like to sell everything sold everywhere.
Sadly, only robots will have jobs to pay for them.
26
@Dw that's my question: how do we sustain a consumer economy when humans get laid off due to automation? Robots don't buy anything.
10
@Dwa My local Home Depot just redid its checkout lanes.... all the traditional human-based lanes are gone. They are all self-checkout now, with a customer service desk and a few attendants floating around. This is happening everywhere, at a frightening pace.
7
Aldi, the supermarket of the future, needs only two-three people to run an entire store.
3
Age discrimination will come into play for Amazon when deciding which of those 300,000 will be cut from jobs. Anyone over 40 should start looking for a future career before the text arrives that you are out.
22
@Jacquie Age discrimination is already a thing within their warehouses. Their demanding rate system puts older employees in particular at increased risk of losing their job or working in a perpetual state of fear of losing their job. Plenty of older employees quit in their first few months because they know they can't keep up or don't want to try to keep up and live with the aches and pains that come with it.
8
Amazon should be leveraging their investment in automation to increase growth, profits, and returns for their investors.
There is a coming day on the horizon when these big tech companies will reach a crescendo of growth and start to pair down their bloated labor expense. It's not an if, but a when. Every industry goes through cycles, including the tech sector.
Even though many of my friends work in tech, I look forward to the day these tech bro's are brought down to Earth.
2
@nwsnowboarder.... don't you think that's what they are doing? this 700 million is a PR cost. they know that at some future time they will no longer be employing 300,000 which will raise profits, and this is the cost of trying to slow down the criticisms of that. obviously they anticipate the gains in profits to be much larger than this number.
6
So, Amazon will be able to conveniently write off these "educate-their-workforce" against any federal taxes that they may *eventually* be directed to actually pay?
Meanwhile, the folks that are "educated" to work with/on robotic co-workers will feel mildly secure about the future. That is, until the day (coming ver-rry soon) that support 'bots are engineered to maintain the warehouse fetch bots. The ever-evolving food-chain of labor looks mighty bright for the Machines. For corporeal life, perhaps not so much??
27
At what point will the majority of Americans with zero purchasing power be fined or jailed for not buying products from companies like Amazon.
6
@Steve: for 20 years….I enjoyed posting reviews of movies and books on Amazon.
I have hundreds of reviews there.
But I borrowed the books and DVDs from the public library. I could have NEVER afforded to buy them all.
Just last year….after 20+ years….Amazon instituted a new policy.
If you do not buy $50 worth of merchandise EVERY SIX MONTHS….you cannot post any reviews. That's $100 a year (plus presumably Amazon Prime at $130 a year).
I rarely buy anything online, so that's no use to me whatsoever.
So now I cannot even reviews books and films in the biggest and most influential peer review site IN THE WORLD.
If they ban people from reviewing stuff….what ELSE will they ban or demand or fine you for?
1
The retraining success rate is 0-15% at the absolute most.
So its completely a feel good measure as Amazon cuts jobs, and absorbs more and more of the Us economy while paying $0 in Taxes
39
@Dr. J With such a low probability of re-training success, don't ever try and retrain anyone. Just tell them their job has been taken over by a machine, and they're fired?
Amazon knows how hard re-training is. They're not just going to be throwing money at it as a PR stunt. There will probably be qualifications, tests, and regular measurements to see if the individuals are capable and motivated.
Glad they're giving it a chance.
5
@Michael Cook,
If you think the majority of companies are going to do what Amazon is doing, you are naive. Most other companies are going to show their employees the door when their job becomes obsolete, or a best, allow the human worker to retire before they automate the job.
Nobody is against retraining here but the problem is a lot more complicated than simply going back to school for short period of time.
While it's unlikely automation is going to eliminate all jobs anytime soon, a lot of people who think they're safe because they have an education are going to be in for a rude awakening in next couple of decades.
13
Did you make that figure up?
And the other two thirds will be....laid off
21
Even dedicated retraining efforts won't be substantial enough to provide all American workers with employment as automation spreads farther in the coming decade.
This is the 4th iteration of the Industrial Revolution and arguably the most serious in its projected reduction of available jobs across diverse industries.
Andrew Yang, anyone?
32
@Alex
Yes, this should be the number one priority for the next election. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Without jobs, nothing else matters. Only Andrew Yang is talking about and offering solutions to AI and automation. Humanity First. Go Yang.2020
4
So, how are the other 2/3s supposed to purchase products from Amazon?
Why don't corporate owners understand that they don't exist unless people have purchasing power?
23
Sadly, the tech revolution is going to reduce the workers enough to hurt them. This "revolution" is a repeat of the period of time over 100 years AND 150 years in this country. The KEY to this problem and it is a problem is education beginning in elementary school and universally in the United States. Without education in the tech sector, our youth will be unemployed. This action of greater education FOR ALL youth as well as older (20's-40's) is essential AND a must for this country. It can only be done in the public schools who accept ALL rather than private schools and charter schools (which are for-profit in most cases). After 40 years in the public sector of education, I have seen the preparing of our youth is woeful short of preparation for the next generation, let alone the present generation. No, every one need not get a B.A. or B.S. The need for skilled workers are necessary and with good pay but the K-12 schools a well as the 2 Year college (community college) is not ready for the future art large, There are some great community colleges, but not enough.
1
@Dick Diamond nice critique I think robots are here forever and education should create many new jobs
Someone will develop programs and teach workers how to work with them
Efficiency is certainly going to reduce some employment however its likely new areas will open up for skilled workers and tech
1
I am so glad I am retiring in 4 years, and with enough money. I would not want to be younger today with the way the world of work is going - not for anything.
48
Congratulations—enjoy your retirement! Still, when it comes time to vote in future elections, please keep the younger generations in mind. We will need thoughtful leaders who understand and appreciate the minutiae of automation and its effects on society.
4
Well, of course they'll retrain where they can. It's cheaper than raising compensation to compete for workers already skilled in the needed fields. Those without the aptitudes needed will be released.
10
Amazon just turned 25. Does anyone know what it want to do when it grows up? Because I don't know.
9
IMPO
It is very important to become a
highly educated and highly trained in marketable skills professionals
in the very first place
1
@Steven,
That is all sounds get in theory; however, in the real world what is marketable changes over time and sometimes becomes obsolete when you least expect it.
Retraining for decent paying jobs is not something you can do overnight--it can months sometimes even several years, at which point what you retrained for may or may not be in demand.
By no means am I against retraining--it can definitely help people in some cases--but there is limit to how long it's realistic to expect people to retrain for. A few months is one thing and even 4 years can be worth--some people go back to school for another degree. However, expecting people displaced by automation to spend 10 years retraining is not realistic.
Addressing the problem of what to with those displaced by automation is more complicated than retraining alone.
6
It's about time. All corporations should be doing this as well as the country focusing on technical skills as well as the doctors, lawyers etc.
Back in the day lots of corporations had PAID internships as well as training for new employees. My high school also had options for those wanting a college degree and others who wanted to work in the trade as carpenters, plumbers, electricians etc.
That seemed to go by the wayside as getting a college education became the "minmum" one needed to succeed. Well surprise we need both. It's time to respect all work.
I don't know about you but I need a plumber a lot more than a lawyer
71
@M Vitelli,
The days when companies trained and developed their workforce are, with rare exceptions, gone.
Now you are basically on your own to not only get the requisite training but the relevant experience as well.
Look at the requirements for supposed entry level jobs these days--many places expect you to have done the job somewhere else instead of training you.
Given this reality, it is absurd to expect companies to retrain their workforce as increasing numbers of jobs get automated.
If your job gets automated and you are right on the cusp of retirement, if you're lucky you might be allowed to retire instead of being outright laid off. However, this is not a given as more than a few people have been laid off just short of retirement.
However, in most cases those losing their jobs due to automation will be laid off in the standard "nothing personal but don't let the door hit you on the way out" manner.
2
Amazon's goal is to automate as many jobs as possible.
That's really all you need to know.
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@L Take off your blinders, L. This article shows Amazon is going to spend $700 million to help workers keep their jobs and upgrade to better positions. I don't know of any other large corporations doing the same. Hopefully others will latch onto the idea. Kudos to Amazon!
14
@L - That's a core part of Amazon's business model - efficient, automated logistics! They are evil because they are automating? They have had extensive automation at their warehouses for a long time (they rarely show it when they allow the press inside), and it gets improved regularly. Anyone who understands the company already "knows". People can fight automation all they want, but it's inevitable. The unfortunate side effect is fewer jobs, and concentration of wealth in fewer hands. That's a social problem, but don't blame Amazon for pursuing an obvious lucrative market.
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flaind,
My point is that Amazon's ultimate goal is to be rid of pesky humans.
And that $700 million is tax money that Jeff Bezos never paid. Plus, there will be layoffs. I guarantee it.
5
Automation is here and advancing quickly.
Andrew Yang is a presidential candidate who understands this and the displacement it will create and has proposed a $1,000 monthly income for each American over the age of 18. I don't think Yang will be the Democratic nominee but his idea deserves attention.
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@Jude
Why not make it a million per month and then everyone will just be rich. All problems solved!
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@Pat
You continue to borrow from future generations, effectively giving them a monthly debit.
It's amazing the young people in your country sit still while their elders mortgage their futures.
10
@Pat because $1,000 a month is still below the poverty line. No one is going to stop working when they receive an additional $1,000 dollars a month. But what they will do is spend more on the things that get put on the backburner when people are living at the margins. Things that increasingly put a gap between the haves and have-nots: child-care, tutoring, more mobility to move to where the jobs are, or stay put and start a small business in small town America, where all of your fellow citizens will also have an additional $1,000 to spend every month.
The amount is critical.
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If Ford and GM retained horse-and-buggy makers to produce cars would that be a problem?
4
More evidence showing why AI/automation is one of the biggest problems facing America today. I am not against AI/automation but we need real solutions. The only Democratic candidate that is addressing this is Andrew Yang. His book The War on Normal People hits the nail on the head. No wonder the Internet is all over him--aka the Yang Gang. I have no doubts he will be the next President of the United States.
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Retraining warehouse workers to be software engineers? Good luck with that. Maybe 10% at most could make the switch. It's nice that they are offering the training, but it will only help a small fraction of the people who will be laid off.
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@Becks
Try re-reading the article: "Software engineering classes will be available for corporate employees".
Warehouse workers are not corporate employees.
19
Warehouse workers are not Amazon employees. They work for temp agencies.
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@Becks: "everyone" cannot be a software engineer, anymore than "everyone" can't be a doctor, lawyer, brick layer, teacher, etc.
The idea that there is one superior job -- because RIGHT NOW it pays fairly well -- is ridiculous.
10-20 years from now, it is likely that many computers will be self-programming, due to advanced AI.
ALREADY many software jobs are done overseas, for far less pay -- in China, India, Pakistan, etc.
That's one of the problems with this whole "retraining" mantra -- it often DOES NOT WORK. You are always chasing some unobtainable "hot job"....as the market changes and changes again and YOU get older and less desirable from an HR point of view.
7
It is nice that Amazon is retraining 100,000 of their personnel. But how many to these will be retained after they pick the cream of the pack? Amazon likes to have brutal competitions like they did in picking another “Headquarters”. Not everyone has the ability to be a top class coder / tech person. Also how many of these new tech jobs will be replaced due to AI?
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@steve Yes, this would be better characterized as a filtering than retraining.
Our IT department did a similar thing - fire everyone, make them reapply for the same job with tweaked Job descriptions, then hire the desired employees. One note, some of the good employee said I'm out of here.
16
Wow. 7,000 each - that training will surely open new opportunities...!
8
It's great that Amazon will be offering to retrain. But what about people who might not have the aptitude to retrain as software engineers? Will there be jobs for them?
59
No, those jobs have already been sent offshore.
15
@Karen Did not think that was a factor. The refrain has been send everybody to college, give everyone equal access, and that anyone can do any job but it is the environment they are in or the lack of educational access that are the only things that would hold a person back.
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@Karen
that's why they are warehouse workers.
6