AMAZON IS

RUNNING OUT
OF WORKERS

Ashley Prince
Company Background
■American multi-national conglomerate that focuses
on e-commerce, digital streaming, cloud computing,
and artificial intelligence.
■Jeff Bezos founded Amazon from his garage
in Washington on July 5, 1994. It originally started
as an online marketplace for books but then
expanded to sell electronics, software, video games,
apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry.
■On February 2, 2021, Amazon announced that
Bezos would step down as CEO and transition to
Executive Chair of Amazon's board in the third
quarter of 2021. Andy Jassy, who is currently CEO
of Amazon Web Services, will succeed Bezos as
CEO of the company.
■Amazon is referred to as "one of the most
influential economic and cultural forces in the
world", as well as the world's most valuable brand.
AMAZON
IS
RUNNING
OUT OF
WORKERS
Amazon runs through employees so quickly
that executives worry they will have no one to
employ in the US.
■ Amazon has faced criticism consistently with their working conditions citing long hours, high-
injury risk & rate, short breaks, lack of management, automated HR, and the list goes on.
■ Amazon has been hiring hundreds of thousands of workers for their fulfillment centers and they
are quitting as fast as they were hired and not coming back.
■ 350,000 have been hired between July and October 2021 and many of them stayed for just
”days or weeks.”
■ Amazon is a physically demanding job with long shifts, two 30-minute bathroom breaks per 10-
hour shift, where in some locations, the bathroom alone is sometimes a 10-minute walk away. It
is reported that many employees have no idea who they report to and have never met their
manager.
■ Hourly employees have a 150% turnover rate annually at Amazon.
AmaZen Booth
Class Connection
■ Poor Management from First-Line managers to Top-line managers - Most Amazon employees do
not even know who they are reporting to. This is not only a problem that first-line managers need to
address, but this also needs to be addressed company wide in upper management. With Automated HR
difficulties and increased ethical concerns, managers on all levels need to keep up.
■ Bounded Rationality – Amazon has been criticized over working conditions for a long period of time.
Bounded Rationality was shown when Bezos and upper-management decision makers thought that
adding the AmaZen boxes would satisfice and be the best choice to help poor working conditions
instead of looking for the optimal solution.
■ Although this sounds like it would be a rational decision and help workers, Bezos and Top-Line
managers are so far removed from non-management employees that their thinking on this was limited.
Bezos then overcompensated by giving an Escalation of Commitment stating that yes, Amazon
needed to “do a better job” and made a commitment to be “Earth’s best employer and Earth’s Safest
Place to Work.”
Sources
https://www.investopedia.com/news/5-companies-amazon-killing/

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-turnover-worker-shortage-2021-6

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5nmw/amazon-introduces-tiny-zenbooths-for-stressed-o
ut-warehouse-workers

https://www.kiplinger.com/investing/stocks/tech-stocks/602197/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-will
-step-down-not-away

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57287151

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/study-amazon-workers-injured-at-higher-rates-than-rival
-companies.html