Workers who can’t keep up with extreme productivity goals are fired or encouraged to quit. What emerges is a troubling picture of Amazon’s business model-one in which the company views its workers as disposable and designs its operations to foster high turnover. Asian and Black workers represented 9.5 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Fifty-four percent of warehouse workers in California in 2017 were Latinx. Warehouse workers in California are overwhelmingly people of color, with the large majority being Latinx.In contrast, overall turnover for workers in all California industries only rose slightly, from 63.9 percent to 69.8 percent. During this same period, turnover for all California warehouse workers (including Amazon) also grew from 42.1 percent in 2011 to 83 percent in 2017.The average turnover rate for warehouse workers in these “Amazon” counties more than doubled, leaping from 38.1 percent to 100.9 percent between 2011-the year before Amazon opened its first fulfillment center in California-and 2017. Turnover rates increased dramatically in counties after Amazon located there.This is substantially higher than the turnover rates for warehouse workers overall in California and in the U.S., which are 83.0 percent and 69.8 percent, respectively.In other words, more workers leave their warehouse jobs each year than the total number of warehouse workers employed in those counties. The average turnover rate for warehouse workers in counties with Amazon fulfillment centers was 100.9 percent in 2017, the latest year for which data are available.Our analysis of California county-level census data shows that when Amazon opens a fulfillment center, warehouse worker turnover in that county skyrockets.Ĭounties hosting Amazon fulfillment centers have turnover rates that are much higher than the average rate of turnover for warehouse workers in California and workers in other industries overall in the state. High turnover is the norm at Amazon facilities. Data from the company’s own records have confirmed their accounts showing that Amazon warehouses have stunningly high injury rates. Workers describe pushing their bodies to the brink to avoid automatic termination for missing quotas. Amazon relies on an extreme high-churn model, continually replacing workers in order to sustain dangerous and grueling work pace demandsĪmazon has repeatedly touted its commitment to providing quality jobs, but a growing body of evidence on injuries and turnover at their facilities tells a different story.Īmazon workers around the country have reported being subject to unsustainably fast productivity requirements resulting in injury and exhaustion.
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