Slashdot Mirror
Amazon To Hire 20% More Holiday Workers To Meet Growing Demand (bloomberg.com)
Amazon.com is hiring 20 percent more seasonal workers this year, suggesting it anticipates a strong holiday season. Bloomberg reports: The e-commerce giant will add 120,000 seasonal positions, up from 100,000 last year, "to support growing customer demand," said Mike Roth, vice president of customer fulfillment, in a statement. The workers will fill spots in fulfillment and sorting centers and at customer service sites in the U.S. Last year more than 14,000 seasonal employees were shifted to full-time roles after the holidays and the company expects to increase that number this year, Roth said.
For the global temp job economy, temp jobs will be the only jobs left 10 years from now including the highly overpaid overestimating their own skills kinda jobs... (you earn $200.000 now? It will be $80,000 in 5 years)
Mark this so you can tell me how wrong i was 10 years from now, because i won't be wrong at all...
. . . fewer workers, more robots. I give them 5 years, and they may well have an entirely robotic warehouse. . .
with all these fucking job creators, jack
And the unsurprising aspect is that people will continue to spend money with them, hand over fist. Everybody who spends money with them are just as guilty of this as the company, themselves. People know that Amazon treats its employees like shit, but nobody cares when it comes down to their own wallet.
I don't respond to AC's.
And there you have it America, All of those full time, year round, fully vested pensions and 401k jobs with full health benefits that raised families of 7 throughout the 1960's. Now in the 2010's we have replaced them all with part time seasonal work with Amazon, UPS, USPS, Target, Walmart, and Uber. If we call this "employment" then we're truly in a state of denial. Until we FACE THE FACT that we have 325 Million Americans and about 70 million decent jobs we will never understand REALITY. Let's at the very least FACE THE FACTS and stop putting lipstick on pigs.
It's called seasonal work. Most retail operations make two-thirds of their revenues during the holiday season. If they don't have enough workers on hand to meet the demand, revenues will decline. This has nothing to do with whomever is in the White House.
You're right, all presidents celebrate this lie.
I have an uncle in his 60s who only does seasonal work. He drives his tractor in the fields for 12 to 16 hours per day for nine months. For three months he doesn't work at all. His net worth is $1M+.
You're right, all presidents celebrate this lie.
Job reports are seasonally adjusted. The only lie being told is the lie you tell yourself.
14 hours per day (plus or minus 2) for nine months is way more than full time employment.
14 hours per day (plus or minus 2) for nine months is way more than full time employment.
Still seasonal work. No one is going to hire a tractor to till frozen ground during the winter.
You know those shit retail jobs that pay like crap but require minimal qualifications? Working for Walmart and other similar stores? Well, an Amazon worker, since robots help bring him the stuff and a computer micromanages his every action, is probably 5 times as effective at moving product as a retail stocker is. So +20k seasonal jobs = -100k shitty retail jobs elsewhere.
Ok, thinking over my post, that isn't quite true. If consumer incomes were still growing - if people were consuming more - then if consumption of various shit from Amazon were 5x what it was before Amazon, then the number of jobs would be the same.
But they aren't.
When I was younger I just worked for temp agencies and liked being able to take or turn down jobs, never working more than a few months at a place.
I will quote the great sage, Neil Peart:
"We travel in the dark of the new moon
A starry highway traced on the map of the sky
Like lovers and heroes, lonely as the eagle's cry
We're only at home when we're on the fly
On the fly
We travel on the road to adventure
On a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun
Like lovers and heroes, and the restless part of everyone
We're only at home when we're on the run
On the run"
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
As much as I think everyone should have something productive to do I have to say that from where they sit it probably makes perfect sense... Why spend 4 years (let alone the cash) to train for a profession that can be outsourced or H1B'd away to just end up at the same job that you're mocking them for taking? Aside from licensed professions, there really isn't much value today in working like to dog to get a slip of paper that might get you a job that lasts you until mid-life.
We need a constructive way of what we can do with all the population that has no real chance at meaningful employment. The economy is going to have to change to accommodate the masses that have no place to go even if they wanted to go there. I understand that not everyone gets to be an astronaut but at the same time the job market for a lot of seasoned employees is abysmal. Something has to give somewhere and mocking the unwilling for their attitude isn't going to get us anywhere until someone comes up with a workable plan. They're unwilling for a very good reason.
Someone driving a tractor in a field like that is not in the same league as an Amazon employee. Around here, most of them are either retirees or young college-age types. It gets to be quite chaotic during peak season . . . the things that go on the in bathrooms, oh my.
Neil also said the way to get a drummer off your porch was to pay him for the pizza...
Someone driving a tractor in a field like that is not in the same league as an Amazon employee.
OP complained about someone in their 30's (Millennial, of course) doing only seasonal work. I gave a counter example.
These crappy temp jobs are going to bubble up into the unemployment numbers and, though the rate is seasonally adjusted, they'll show job growth. What I want to see is real full-time employee job growth, the kind of work that comes with real salaries, retirement and health benefits. It's really sad to see people in their mid-50s driving for Uber because they can't find work after having their jobs offshored or eliminated. Uber will say they're doing people a favor, but I think they and companies like them are contributing to the perception that employees should be treated as disposable commodities.
There has to be a better safety net for these people than what unemployment insurance provides in the US these days. If people could be assured of at least their full salary being replaced for a reasonable amount of time, they might be willing to take more risks, look for a job that's a good fit rather than the first thing that comes along, etc. I know we're supposed to be living in a wondrous time of automation, innovation, etc. but the fact is that most people need something to do. They need full time employment, a sense of purpose, the ability to put down roots, etc. Almost no one can be a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur no matter how much the small business owners/cheerleaders want people to believe that. Very few people want to be nomadic and move from place to place chasing work every year or so.
I know one theory I have on how to solve this is not popular at all, but what about forcing businesses to pre-fund longer-term employee severance packages at a rate proportional to the employee's salary? Employees would be free to leave at will and their pre-funding would go back into a general fund. But, just dumping a worker because you feel like it, offshore their job, etc. would require a payment out of the fund that would actually carry the employee until they could find new work. It's good for the businesses too, because it forces them to really think hard about who they hire rather than just take the first guy who comes in the door. I know every business owner would scream socialism, evil regulations, etc. over this one. But the reality is that every single business, small or large, has huge advantages over regular workers. Business owners can just funnel all their personal expenses through their companies, the really large ones can take advantage of loopholes to pay zero taxes, etc. Having a common sense plan like this makes sense -- it's just a bigger payment into the unemployment insurance fund to ensure people aren't reduced to what amounts to minimum wage when you get thrown out of a job and still have bills to pay.
im eager to hear jeff bezos call for open borders to supply his need for moar illegal immigrant "workers". his bought-and-paid-for mouthpiece, The Washington Post will surely sound the call soon.
And come on down.
They are going to be hiring some 300 people from this area (Washington state, city).
Temp or not this couldn't hurt many. Me? I'll pass.
In the fall of 2011 I needed something to do... I'm over-qualified for just about any regular JOB, but Amazon hires anyone who passes their screening. The gig lasted about 2 months (December/January). I was so relieved when they finally let me go. Humanity's Second-Best Hope was about my time at Amazon (originally posted at Kuro5hin.org [RIP]).
I started driving a taxi a month later. It was a lot of fun, until Wall Street started subsidizing the upstarts...