Amazon's Workforce
Reports
indicate Amazon employs 1,125,300 workers worldwide. It
added 400,000 in 2020 during the pandemic, 100,000 in October alone.
(In 2007 it had 17,000 workers and at the end of 2019 it had 798,000).
Of this global workforce, 21,000 work in its Canadian operations.[1] These numbers
include full and part-time workers.
Warehouse
Workers
Amazon calls its warehouses "fulfilment centres" which
is a specialty category. It employs more than 500,000 workers at
175 of
these "fulfillment centres" it has around the world. The workers are
called "associates."
Amazon defines its
"fullfilment centres" as
"modern, secure facilities with highly automated pick, pack, and ship
processes to facilitate the safe and timely processing of inventory and
customer orders." It has also distinguished itself for its surveillance
regimes and punitive actions against those who fail to produce at a
rate that the company
demands.
Tours of one of its 20 warehouses in the U.S. can be scheduled on line. Amazon describes a tour as follows:
"If you are imagining a warehouse filled with handcarts and
all the
books in one place and apparel in another, picture this: orange robots
balancing towers of goods twirling in what looks like a choreographed
dance across shiny concrete floors, miles of conveyor belts and ramps
carrying inventory across the building, and shipping labels
practically flying onto boxes, blown by puffs of air.
"Even
in person, the scale can be difficult to grasp: the Baltimore
center, for example, spans the equivalent of 28 football fields and can
hold millions of items on any given day. Despite the cavernous space,
the skylit climate is remarkably comfortable, kept at room temperature
year-round. Associates pick, pack, and ship Amazon.com customer
orders at more than 175 similar facilities worldwide.
"On
the hour-long tour, you'll see each part of the process and
learn about some of the roles and benefits available for associates at
fulfillment centers, including details on the following: Career Choice,
a program that offers 95 per cent prepaid tuition and fees for
coursework in
high-demand career areas, where a holiday job can lead, and how
on-the-job training can lead to a tech job without college.
"Here's
more about what you'll learn and see on a tour:
"1.
Where products enter the warehouse
"At
the inbound dock, products get taken off trailers by forklift or
manually built into pallets. Freight is separated between that coming
from another Amazon facility and directly from a vendor, such as a
seller using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). With FBA, small businesses
store their products at fulfillment centers, and Amazon picks, packs,
ships, and provides customer service, helping these businesses reach
more customers. Half the items sold on Amazon.com are from small
businesses and entrepreneurs.
"2. The stow
process
"Instead of storing items as a
retail store would -- electronics on
one aisle, books on another -- all of the inventory at Amazon
fulfillment centers is stowed randomly. Yellow, tiered 'pods' stack
bins full of unrelated items, all of them tracked by computers. This
counterintuitive method actually makes it easier for associates to
quickly pick and
pack a wide variety of products.
"Robots ferry
these pods to associates at stow stations based on
product size, navigating 2D barcodes on the floor and yielding way to
one another depending on which has more pressing business. The stower
looks for suitable space for each item and stows it into the pod,
making it available for purchase on Amazon.com.
"3.
Picking orders
"Pickers are like
personal shoppers, plucking from hundreds of items
a day to fulfill customer orders. When the order comes in, a robot
brings pods full of items to associates working at pick stations. The
picker reads the screen, retrieves the correct item from the bin, and
places it into a yellow plastic box called a tote.
"The
robots are incredibly smart, but they aren't competing for jobs
-- they're creating them at Amazon fulfillment centers. Transporting
thousands of pods per floor with millions of products stowed inside,
the robots enable more inventory to pass through a fulfillment center,
which means more associates are needed for handling that inventory.
Since 2012, Amazon has added tens of thousands of robots to its
fulfillment centers, while also adding more than 300,000 full-time jobs
globally.
"4. Quality assurance
"Different teams along the way ensure the fulfillment process
runs
smoothly. The Inventory Control and Quality Assurance team makes sure
an item's physical location actually matches what's in the computer,
tracking millions of units of inventory. The robots need support too,
so Amnesty Floor Monitors make sure the floors are clear and reset
the units when needed. Many other checks along the way verify the right
product goes to the right place.
"Touring an Amazon
fulfillment center, you witness firsthand a
process that is constantly being fine-tuned. While associates once
needed to hand-scan a bin location after stowing each item, for
example, machine learning now enables the system to know automatically
the location where the associate has placed the item. It's impossible
to predict
today what technological innovation you might witness in six months.
"5. Packing orders
"First,
items that belong to different shipments are organized and
scanned for accuracy. Then they're sent to the pack station, where the
computer system recommends box sizes to associates, and a machine
measures out the exact amount of tape needed. Many items are shipped in
their original boxes, and Amazon works with vendors to reduce
packaging. At this stage, there's no shipping label -- machines handle
that down the line, protecting the customer's privacy and keeping the
process efficient.
"6. Shipping orders out
"Packed envelopes and boxes then race underneath
the SLAM (Scan,
Label, Apply, Manifest) machines, which deposit shipping labels with
astonishing speed and, contrary to the name, a light touch. For quality
control, the package is weighed to make sure the contents match the
order. A shipping sorter reads package labels to determine where
and how fast customer orders should be sent, serving as a kind of
traffic conductor.
"Ready to roll, the packages are
nudged from the conveyor down
slides into the correct trailer based on shipping method, speed of
delivery, and location. Each door at the shipping dock accommodates
trailers from a variety of different carriers and locations.
"What
to know before you go
"The 60-minute
tours must be scheduled online and are open to anyone
ages 6 and up. Safety is paramount, so visitors must wear flat shoes
with a closed toe and heel, tie back long hair, and use handrails on
stairs. Your guide will run through safety tips at the outset and
provide headsets for everyone so the tour is audible above the
machinery."
Drivers
February 24, 2020.
Demonstration by Amazon workers outside company headquarters in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In addition, Amazon has an
estimated 500,000 drivers who deliver
packages to a consumer's home or a neighbourhood Amazon locker. Amazon
is said to have the world's largest contingent of what is called the
"last-mile delivery network." In fact, Amazon created its own delivery
network in
such a way that the basic rights of the drivers as workers
are violated. This is done in two ways: for some deliveries Amazon
contracts with drivers through "Amazon Flex." These drivers face the
same situation as other workers in the so-called gig economy who work
for Uber, Lyft and the like. They are deemed to be "independent
contractors" who provide their own vehicles or rent them. Because they
are not "employees," they are not paid an hourly wage but by completion
of routes and they are denied the right to unionize, receive minimum
wages, overtime, health care and other benefits and protections that
employers are mandated to provide their workers according to labour
laws.
The second part of Amazon's delivery network is
what are called
Delivery Service Partners (DSP), a scheme set up in 2018. DSPs are
small parcel delivery firms with no more than 40 vans. They are
considered "independent" of Amazon but their work is exclusively the
delivery of products for Amazon Prime customers. Limiting the DSP to
40 vans is a means of blocking unionization and allowing Amazon to
maintain control of the price paid per delivery. DSPs typically employ
40 to 100 workers. Although they wear Amazon uniforms and drive
Amazon-labelled vans they are not employees of Amazon. Like the Flex
drivers, the DSP drivers often work unpaid overtime, face poor
working conditions and are under constant pressure from Amazon to meet
unrealistic deadlines.
Note
1. Amazon describes
itself as
"an American multinational technology company based in Seattle,
Washington, which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital
streaming, and artificial intelligence."
In
2019, Amazon reported a net income of U.S. $11.59 billion, up from
a U.S. $10 billion net income in the previous year. During the
same fiscal period, the company's revenue amounted to more than U.S. $280.5
billion.
Chief
Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is considered the richest man
in the world with a net worth of $187 billion.
This article was published in
Number 86 - December
29, 2020
Article Link:
Amazon's Workforce
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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