Could the days of mass human hiring at Amazon warehouses be numbered? The e-commerce company is looking to ramp up the use of automation in the coming years, which would allow it to hire about 600,000 fewer human employees, The New York Times reports.
Amazon already employs at least 1.2 million workers, including over 721,000 laborers, to help ship and deliver orders to customers. But the Times says Amazon wants to keep its human workforce flat, even though it expects to double product shipments by 2033.
Instead, machines would handle jobs currently held by humans. In the near term, the company’s automation team predicts it can avoid hiring an additional 160,000 people in the US by 2027, according to the Times, which cites internal documents and interviews.
Another ultimate goal is to one day allegedly automate 75% of the operations at the company’s warehouses. “Amazon is so convinced this automated future is around the corner that it has started developing plans to mitigate the fallout in communities that may lose jobs,” the report adds.
However, Amazon is pushing back. “Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that’s the case here,” a spokesperson told the Times.
“In our written narrative culture, thousands of documents circulate throughout the company at any given time, each with varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness. In this instance, the materials appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don’t represent our overall hiring strategy across our various operations business lines—now or moving forward,” Amazon added. “The facts speak for themselves: No company has created more jobs in America over the past decade than Amazon.”
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Still, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy this summer acknowledged that, “As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”
Also this summer, Amazon boasted about using over 1 million robots to streamline warehouse operations. In addition, companies including Figure AI and Amazon’s partner Agility Robotics are developing humanoid robots that could one day work in factories and warehouses.
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Plus, Amazon is working on software for humanoid robots ahead of planned testing at a “humanoid park” in San Francisco facilities, The Information reported in June. The park will have an indoor obstacle course, and Amazon hopes the humanoid robots will be able to hop on the back of a Rivian electric van and step out to complete deliveries.
Following the Times report, Amazon pointed out that its robots are designed to help human employees “work smarter, not harder” by eliminating some repetitive tasks. Earlier this month, Amazon also announced plans to hire 250,000 people in the US for its annual holiday push.
The automation push comes after a leaked Amazon memo from 2021 warned, “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” citing employee turnover amid concerns about rough working conditions at warehouses.
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Michael Kan
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I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. Earlier this year, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how President Trump’s tariffs will affect the industry. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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