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Amazon Tops 540K Employees After Swallowing Whole Foods in $13.7B Deal (geekwire.com)
A reader shares a report: Amazon added a whopping 159,500 employees in the last quarter, pushing its total employment to 541,900 people worldwide, according to new numbers from the tech giant released today. Amazon's headcount grew 77 percent over this time last year, and a big reason for that is the completion of Amazon's blockbuster deal to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion and the acquisition of e-commerce company Souq. The Whole Foods deal includes 87,000 people who worked at the grocery chain, making up a big chunk of the employment growth this quarter. Even factoring out the acquisitions of Whole Foods and Souq, Amazon's headcount climbed 47 percent over this time last year. "Certainly hiring continues to remain strong, especially in the tech areas and sales force, particularly in AWS," Amazon's CFO Brian Olsavsky said on a call with reporters.
Dotcom Bubble 1.0 was pretty easy to detect the top of...the 1999/2000 Super Bowl ads, pets.com sock puppet and the AOL-Time Warner merger come to mind. I wonder if this transaction will be the top of this one. 540,000 employees in what's basically a conglomerate at this point seems like a lot, and I'm sure they're going to get around to firing as many as they can ASAP.
I also wonder if Amazon is going to find a way to jettison its low-margin retail business and concentrate on AWS. That's probably the business they want to keep...Internet startups pay them handsomely to run everything IT-related, as do some large companies, and a lot of that is profit. Apple and Google basically create money out of nothing by selling apps and ads and subscriptions, so AWS isn't quite like that but is probably extremely profitable.
Getting rid of retail, or at least distancing themselves from it, may be the reason Amazon is looking to build a "second headquarters" in a cheaper location. It'll make the employees and/or operating costs cheaper for the low-margin parts of the business while allowing them to build a hipper Microsoft-esque campus in Seattle to compete with Azure. And then when Amazon announces the split, or sale to a hedge fund or something, they can just cut the entire second HQ loose in a package deal. It's funny because cities around the country are bending over backwards begging to have Amazon build there...zero taxes, free utilities, custom-built infrastructure and housing, whatever it takes. It'll suck for whatever jurisdiction gives them the 99-year tax holiday after they fire everyone or the jobs turn out to be back-office drone jobs at slightly over minimum wage instead of hipster developers.
Why is this allowed?
In a free society, things are allowed unless you can argue that they cause harm. What specific harm do you see in Amazon hiring half a million people?
Why shouldn't it be?
They are destroying retail. Perhaps it is inevitable, but it is terrible: retail was the last way that an average person could have their own business - by opening a "shop". Now all the "shops" are going under because everyone buys online. No more shops - just Amazon employees, all working for "the man".
> I'm sure they're going to get around to firing as many as they can ASAP.
Did you notice in the summary it said Amazon has 47% MORE employees than they did a year ago, even not counting the aquisitions? They're hiring like crazy. They're working hard and finding more people to hire, running radio ads in my city.
> I also wonder if Amazon is going to find a way to jettison its low-margin retail business and concentrate on AWS.
AWS is only 10% of Amazon's business. A very successful 10%, but only 10%. Amazon didn't buy it's own fleet of delivery trucks this year in order to not use them.
"So far so good." said the guy as he fell past the 5th floor window.
If you follow amazon's research, it's obvious they will have far less than a half a million employees -- and very soon.
Even without their intense focus on removing the last human step at amazon, it's just natural that in a corporate merger like this all redundant functions will be laid off.
All fine and good until Amazon achieves a monopoly position. Then it will inevitably turn on the screws as all unregulated monopolies ever have always done.
But for now.. lower prices, new delivery options, all "so far ... so good."
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I don't think you get Amazon. They exist to own as much of any market as they can. It doesn't have to be a standalone success, it only needs to feed the mothership in terms of control. If something isn't so critical now, Amazon will hang on to it and find a way to fit it into a larger scheme later.
If they didn't want retail it's odd they bought a chain of grocery stores?
It's also odd that they are building their own distribution network, to replace UPS.
I think it's clear that Amazon has absolutely no intention of getting out of retail.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I also wonder if Amazon is going to find a way to jettison its low-margin retail business and concentrate on AWS.
That sure happened a lot right before the dot-com bust. Most companies that jettisoned a cash cow to focus on Growth! went under, but most of the cash cows survived. (My favorite, Agilent, is now worth twice what it was worth when HP dumped it, while HP swirls the drain). The only smart one was AOL, who used their over-valued junk stock to buy a cash cow.
The Amazon leadership was around for the dot bust. They all saw that stuff happen. Seems unlikely they'll repeat that particular mistake. In fact, they seem to have just bought another large retail business. Funny, that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.