Taylor Herzlich writes for the New York Post about a major initiative from Amazon that would affect the American economy.
Amazon is planning to replace more than half a million jobs in the US with robots, according to a new report.
Warehouse automation will enable the e-commerce giant to avoid hiring over 600,000 people in the coming years, executives told Amazon’s board in 2024, according to the New York Times.
That’s even though the company reportedly expects to sell twice as many products by 2033.
The shift from human to robot is expected to unfold over the coming years, according to Tuesday’s article.
Amazon plans to avoid hiring over 160,000 US workers by 2027 – saving the company about 30 cents on each item it ships — the report stated. Hundreds of thousands of additional roles will be automated by 2033.
Ultimately, the firm’s robotics team is looking to automate 75% of operations, according to the Times.
“Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that’s the case here,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told The Post in a statement.
“In this instance, the materials appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don’t represent our overall hiring strategy across our various operations business lines – now or moving forward.”
Nantel added that Amazon plans to hire 250,000 people for the upcoming holiday season, but did not share how many of those positions will be permanent.
If Amazon does cut back on hiring, it would represent a sharp turnaround in the company’s growth strategy.
Since 2018, it has more than tripled its US workforce to nearly 1.2 million people — making Amazon the second-largest employer in the country.
The firm is already plotting ways to reduce the backlash in communities that might lose out on warehouse jobs, according to the Times.
