[pvankessel]

Not surprised to see this pop up. I interviewed for a position with Amazon a few months back to lead up a new research program to determine how they can better recruit and retain hourly workers. I had no intention of taking the job, but was curious so I took the interview. What stood out was just the sheer scale at which they're operating - they're literally up against the constraints of domestic labor supply. I have plenty of strong opinions about how they treat their workers and have no desire to work for such a company, but I was surprised to find that I did sympathize with them to an extent - it's not just about offering better pay and bathroom breaks, they're also on the verge of exhausting the viable labor market. I wish whoever took the job the best of luck - I hope that they're taking the research effort seriously and it's not just performance art.

[jrochkind1]

The article suggests they are on the verge of exhausting the labor supply because they can't get anyone to stay for more than a couple years though, because so many people have already been there and left -- and that this has in the past been intentional on the employer's part, to only keep workers for a couple years.

If true, that puts a different light on things -- how the combination of having such a large labor force and a strategy to intentionally have high turnover combine to exhaust the labor supply, sure.

[pvankessel]

Oh don't get me wrong, much of it is definitely the result of their policies and could have been avoided if they hadn't treated their labor force like a discardable, consumable resource for years. I just thought it was interesting to see something pop up in the news that echoes what I got a glimpse of a few months ago - that Amazon is starting to recognize that they have a problem on their hands (finally). Just thinking about it in dispassionate scientific terms, it's a fascinating and unique problem - it might be too late for them to pivot and shift back towards "sustainable" practices, and if they fail I'm certainly going to enjoy the schadenfreude, but I'm really curious to see how they attempt to deal with all this.

[TMWNN]

>I interviewed for a position with Amazon a few months back to lead up a new research program to determine how they can better recruit and retain hourly workers.

Some companies take pride in promoting from within. McDonald's is well known for turning entry-level workers into store mangers, then regional managers, and so on. Walmart does this, too.

Does Amazon not have such a culture?

[dr_spicy]

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

[pvankessel]

Lol, not yet it seems

[kfarr]

> also on the verge of exhausting the viable labor market [at this level of pay]

[pvankessel]

I mean, that's definitely a huge factor, but there IS a limit to how much Amazon can pay their hundreds of thousands of workers and still remain competitive - and I have NO idea where that threshold is, which is why I'm fascinated to see how this shakes out. Either Amazon workers start getting treated better which is great, or the company collapses and turns into an unprecedented case study of what not to do. Either way, I'm grabbing some popcorn!