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Amazon Offers To Help Train Workers For Other Jobs

Posted by Soulskill on from the living-the-dream-at-clown-school dept.

itwbennett writes "Amazon, which has come under attack for harsh warehouse working conditions, on Monday announced a new training benefit program for fulfillment center employees. The program will cover 95% of the cost of vocational training for jobs that Amazon determined to be in high demand and that pay relatively well, including aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technology, medical laboratory science and nursing." Two limitations of note: the maximum Amazon will contribute is $2,000/year for four years, and the employees need to have worked full-time for three consecutive years before they can take advantage of the program.

4 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. I work here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was a temp, got converted, then hired into IT. Luckily there was a career path I was interested in... Due to what the company is and does, there just isn't much room for upward mobility or different career paths. They listened to the warehouse workers and gave them this option, which everyone loves. You put in your time and do your job, and after three years you can do what you want, and Amazon will pay for it.

  2. That does not compute. by gman003 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "The program will cover 95% of the cost"
    "the maximum Amazon will contribute is $2,000/year for four years"

    2,000 $/yr * 4 yr = .95 X
    X = $8421

    So apparently you can become a trained aircraft mechanic for not much more than $8,000. Which is about 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of a common Bachelor's degree.

    Yeah, either the summary dropped a zero somewhere, aircraft mechanics are trained far less than you would think, or that 95% figure is *way* off.

    1. Re:That does not compute. by ComfortablyAmbiguous · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not to encourage article reading, but they cover 95% of the cost of tuition, up to a maximum of $2000 dollars a year. So if your tuition is $1000 per year ( yea, yea, I know, ridiculously low) they would reimburse you $950. If your tuition is $10,000 a year, you get $2000. What Amazon is willing to pay has nothing to do with what it actually costs. All of which reinforces the fact that this is more of a PR move than a real, viable help with a serious education. There are a number of low-end jobs (yes, even McDonald's) that offer tuition assistance to some degree or the other. This isn't looking like an especially fine deal.

  3. Re:Yikes... by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What do you expect Amazon to do? Give a free full ride to anyone who asks?

    But that's the thing, their temps didn't ask for a full ride, nor did they ask for extra training. They only asked for the dock doors to be opened so they get could get some ventilation in.

    So not only, Amazon didn't respond to the issue at hand, the fact that their people are getting heat strokes. They're not even addressing the right people. It's not their "full-time employees" that are getting heat strokes, it's mostly their temporary employees that are getting them because it's their temps that are the most vulnerable in the company.

    And not only, are they not addressing the main complaint that managers are routinely bullying their employees during the height of their heat strokes to sign papers saying that the root cause of their heat strokes are not work-related, but now they're trying to regurgitate those same manufactured statistics back to the public -- in the form of even vaguer comparisons -- as if they had not even read the original complaints against them.

    What the hell are their PR people doing? Are they so out of touch? There are a thousand ways the company could have responded better to these criticisms.