Amazon is changing the labor market in U.S. cities near its fulfillment centers (Dallas: houses)

[Walter Benjamin]

* https://www.dallasnews.com/business/...llment-centers

I thought this story was enlightening about the situation for workers in retail stores and warehouse fulfillment centers. A reminder that it's not just degree-holding engineers and managers, teachers and nurses, who move to big cities like Dallas.

The map in the story shows huge swaths of the country where the local Macy's/Sears/JC Penney has closed down, eliminating many low-paid jobs.

Those jobs are replaced by much better-paying jobs in Amazon warehouses. But the warehouses tend to be in bigger and more expensive metro areas. Much harder for a warehouse worker to make ends meet in DFW than, say, El Paso (per the story).

According to the map, many US states don't have even one single Amazon warehouse: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine...

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Walter Benjamin

* https://www.dallasnews.com/business/...llment-centers

I thought this story was enlightening about the situation for workers in retail stores and warehouse fulfillment centers. A reminder that it's not just degree-holding engineers and managers, teachers and nurses, who move to big cities like Dallas.

The map in the story shows huge swaths of the country where the local Macy's/Sears/JC Penney has closed down, eliminating many low-paid jobs.

Those jobs are replaced by much better-paying jobs in Amazon warehouses. But the warehouses tend to be in bigger and more expensive metro areas. Much harder for a warehouse worker to make ends meet in DFW than, say, El Paso (per the story).

According to the map, many US states don't have even one single Amazon warehouse: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine...

Those states are all small, poor, and/or have some of the lowest population densitites in the US. I'm not surprised Amazon doesn't have a presence there.

[RemyLebeau]

Amazon pays well because the employees are ran ragged. Not saying its bad or good, it's just facts. I think I read once that the average Amazon employee walks over 5 miles in an 8 hour shift.

Early in my career, I worked as a 'product specialist/IC coordinator' for a multi-million dollar mail/ship corporation. At one time, me and 2 other people were "responsible" for over $12 million in inventory.

What the "pickers/order pullers" were tasked with was quite daunting. They were tracked, on several large LED boards posted throughout the warehouse, their fill rate (the time it took each employee to go from location to location to pick and pack customer's orders). If someone was below the "minimum" and alarm would go off, their name would flash on the board and everyone knew. The supervisor had to deal with the issue. Needless to say, if your name popped up 3 or 4 times, you were going to be let go.

They were judged both on accuracy and speed. Equipment malfunction was not an excuse. Waiting on equipment was not an excuse.

Amazon does raise the pay for those folks, but it is a very hard and physically demanding job.

I think most people would be surprised at how hard and demanding of a job it is. Especially those that flip their wig when their order isn't correct or fast enough.