[stoneman24]

From the article, Amazon has 1.5 million employees across offices and warehouses. With about 350,000 corporate employees in executive, managerial and sales.

So that’s about 4% of the non-warehouse staff. What’s their normal staff turnover rate per year?

I wonder if it’s another staff reduction (cos we over hired and want to remove people who didn’t impress) under the cover of improving business productivity using AI

Hat tip to raziel2p who was going down the same in thier comment

[fnordpiglet]

It’s actually not warehouses. It’s groceries. Amazon jumped from a few hundred thousand to 1mm+ with the acquisition of Whole Foods. The corporate jobs is inclusive of engineering and aws.

They do an annual “top grading” layoff that’s variable in size from 5% to 10% which are performance based. There is obviously attrition as well. This leads to a constant hiring flow as these are typically backfilled.

These layoffs are often in addition to top grading and are not backfilled.

Note this is also on top of the RTO misery and thumb screw attrition drive to force out top performing talent in an inverse top grade maneuver.

Almost every single person I had an ounce of respect for at Amazon has left over the last few years. I find it hard to understand why anyone would work there any more.

[stanleykm]

well, one reason people might stay is they are on a visa and the government has a nice corporate friendly visa system in this country.

[fnordpiglet]

I’m not sure I get what part of what I said this relates to, but the visa system in the US is extraordinary draconian compared to other countries for high skill work visas. It’s extremely limited in quantity and if you lose your job you need to find a new one within weeks or need to leave the country. Converting to a permanent visa is difficult and has long time commitments and even then you are not secure in your status. As of recently even minor vehicular infractions can lead to violent deportation and family separation, losing all your belongings and if you own a home forced to sell and remove your kids from school. I know a lot of folks on H1-B and other visas and they live in constant fear especially in competitive cultures like Amazon where people are let go almost capriciously - jeopardizing their life with their families and constantly leaving them insecure in everything in life.

To your point the system is friendly to the employer, but it’s very much not to the employee.

[mynegation]

This is a lot. If you are in a company large enough, you surely know at least 20 people and one of them is gone. The earlier floated figure was even larger: 30K

[stoneman24]

I suppose it’s what you are used to. A company that I worked with had under 100 staff, very profitable but had a staff turnover of about 10% per year.

People joined, some stayed, some left and it was fine.

Perhaps as the departures were staff decisions not some faceless corporate executive, dropping X% cos that’s what he thinks would please the markets or his boss. Or the department is making profits but as much as his MBA says that’s sufficient. That’s the really depressing and infuriating aspect.

[johnnyanmac]

If it's not part time work, 10% yearly turnover is awful for anything that isn't a tiny startup.

>People joined, some stayed, some left and it was fine.

For who? It's always a shame how we underplay the human element in these stories.

[itopaloglu83]

Let them prove that this is not a big deal, but also take note that this is going to continue.

It sounds like the first step in desensitizing folks about firings and forcing the remaining people to work in fear. That’s what they want, they said it themselves, they want people to work in fear.