Amazon to cut 600,000 human jobs for robots, claims insider report
It’s hard to imagine another company that has shaped the job market as much as Amazon over the past two decades. Now, internal documents and interviews obtained by The New York Times point to a big change coming soon.
According to the insider report, Amazon plans to replace around 600,000 jobs in the United States with robots by 2033. Up to 75% of all business processes will be automated in the future.
Replacing human workers with robots to save billions of dollars
Since 2018, the number of Amazon employees in the United States has more than tripled to nearly 1.2 million. Nonetheless, executives reportedly informed the board last year that the company would no longer need to hire American employees in the future thanks to advances in robot automation, even if sales double by 2033.
According to internal documents, around 160,000 jobs could be lost by 2027, particularly in logistics and warehousing. Long term, Amazon plans to automate about 75% of all its operations by 2033, saving the company up to $12.6 billion (and projected to reduce the cost of selling each product by about 30 cents).
Amazon already employs more than a million robots that support 1.6 million human workers. But in the future, machines will no longer just help, but will fully take over many tasks, even beyond the warehouse. Amazon is already working on robots for delivering packages.
According to the New York TimesAmazon preemptively avoids criticism by modeling its communication. Terms like “automation” and “artificial intelligence” should be avoided in public. The company instead wants to talk about “advanced technology” or “cobots” (i.e. robots that work with humans). Amazon also plans to become more involved in charitable projects to alleviate negative headlines.
Amazon rejects implications
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told The Verge that the documents came from an internal team and did not reflect the company’s overall strategy. Many internal documents are drafts or brainstorms that don’t reflect current status or long-term planning, she says.
At the same time, Amazon emphasizes that it is actively recruiting staff, with around 250,000 new jobs set to be created over the Christmas period. The company has not said how many of these jobs will be permanent.
Amazon also said New York Times that its executives have not been instructed to avoid using certain robotics-related terms, and that its involvement in charitable and community work has nothing to do with the company’s automation plans.
The impact of Amazon’s robotics strategy
Amazon has relied on robotic technology for years. In 2012, the company purchased robotics maker Kiva Systems for $775 million. Since then, the company has massively accelerated the automation of its warehouses and delivery processes. Thousands of robots are already in use in new logistics centers such as Shreveport, Louisiana. According to internal calculations, Amazon was able to reduce the number of employees by a quarter in the first year, while simultaneously increasing throughput.
However, Amazon emphasizes that increasing automation will also create new job profiles, for example in the areas of maintenance, programming and monitoring of robotic systems.
For consumers, Amazon’s growing use of bots is unlikely to be noticeable in the short term. Packages may even arrive faster. In the long term, however, this trend could impact the U.S. job market, and perhaps also prices, quality of services, and the treatment of online retail employees in general.
Economist and Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu warns of the possible consequences: if Amazon goes ahead with its plans, the company “will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator.” There is also a risk that other companies will follow suit if full automation proves financially profitable for Amazon.
