The Numbers Are In... Robots Are Slashing Jobs At The World's Second Biggest Employer

750,000 robots have allowed Amazon to employ 25% fewer fulfillment centre employees

Amazon is the second biggest employer in the world, after Walmart.

It employs more than 1.56 million people.

Great.

But back in 2021, it employed 1.61 million people.

And since 2021, it increased package delivery count by 20% .

If you account for productivity growth, Amazon was effectively able to employ 25% fewer people in just a two-year period - specifically in package fulfillment, where it has invested in 750,000 robots to do more of the work.

The company’s most automated fulfillment centre already employs half the staff others do.

Between 2021 and 2024, Amazon’s annual revenue grew from $470 billion to $638 billion. That’s an increase of more than 35%.

Amazon claims it is “a myth” that technology and robots could take people’s jobs. But the work of Benjamin Y. Fong, published on The Guardian this week, shows otherwise.

His conclusion is that Amazon is most certainly automating jobs away.

You can follow Fong’s Substack here.