Amazon and the evil of the hospitality industry
fewer and fewer logistics employees are found due to their poor conditions
Amazon is one of the largest employers in the world. According to Statista, at the end of 2021, it had approximately 1.6 million contract workers globally. A very important part of them is dedicated to logistics tasks in the warehouses of the e-commerce giant, where there is an important peculiarity: the turnover rate is very high, and not many professionals exceed the contract year.
Both circumstances, the need for many employees and high turnover, added to working conditions that are not too good, are leading to a major problem that managers see the need to address as soon as possible, according to an internal report to which the US media outlet Vox has had access. : in a short time they will run out of staff to hire.
Workers are missing. The report points out that the high turnover of warehouse workers is the main cause that is leading to the lack of labor in the medium term. As we already explained in Xataka, Amazon puts great pressure on its logistics employees to meet their demanding delivery deadlines, workers whom it controls with a productivity algorithm that, according to investigations by the US authorities, would even have caused injuries by their high demands.
This, coupled with modest salaries, means that many workers take Amazon warehouse jobs as temporary to get by until they find something better, or while they study, as is often the case with hospitality or construction.
The aforementioned circumstances have meant that, for many years, logistics turnover has been high at Amazon. Something that e-commerce managers have even promoted because it has allowed them to meet their high standards to become a fast supplier of consumer products in almost the entire world without having excessive problems with their workforce. However, now things are changing.
Where? The internal Amazon document points out two areas that could suffer from a lack of labor this year: the Phoenix metropolitan area, in Arizona, and the Inland Empire, in California, about 95 kilometers from Los Angeles. The latter is a key region in the logistics of the western United States, as it has some 20 million people and two of the largest container ports in the North American country are less than two hours away by car. For this reason, the presence of other companies such as Walmart or FedEx is also important and gives professionals more and better options to choose from.
Problems grow. That strategy, which has propelled Amazon to the business Olympus, is beginning to show signs of exhaustion in certain regions. On the one hand, employees who do not rotate and have been working in warehouses for some time are organizing to improve their working conditions, and in some areas, they have already unionized, and on the other hand, many unemployed people think twice before accepting proposal labor of those of Jeff Bezos.
Although labor shortages are not yet an issue, the Amazon report notes that in some specific areas it will be very soon, by the end of 2022, and generally in many regions of the United States by 2024. hoodies
