Amazon’s hiring laid-off small biz workers. What does that mean for the long term labor market?

[dealmaker]

. WhatAmazon’s hiring laid-off small biz workers. What does that mean for the long term labor market?
With millions of shoppers stuck in their houses, Amazon is becoming an even more important destination for consumers.

Rising order volumes will test the company’s supply chain and delivery infrastructure -- and give it a chance to bite off an even bigger chunk of the ecommerce market.

But Amazon could also reshape the LABOR landscape
Last week, Bezos’ behemoth -- which already had ~400k employees in the US -- announced plans to hire100kmore.

And it’s not just Amazon, either...

• Walmart, which had1.4mUS employees, will hire150kmore
• Instacart, which had ~130kUS employees, will hire300kmore
• Dollar General, which had135kUS employees, will hire50kmore
• Domino’s, which had120kUS employees, will hire10kmore
• CVS, which had290kUS employees, will hire50kmore
• PepsiCo, which had90kUS employees, is hiring6kmore
• Kroger, which had453kUS employees, is hiring10k+more

But the hiring binge is possible thanks to... big layoffs
Until recently, the labor market was historically tight: Just 2 months ago, the unemployment rate hovered around 3.5%, a 50-year low.

Then the pandemic erupted. Analysts now predict that 1m people -- mostly restaurant workers and other service-industry employees -- will lose their jobs this month alone.

Is the hiring frenzy a good thing?
Opinions are mixed. In the short term, the boom could help workers who lack benefits like health insurance.

But in the long term, it’s harder to predict how such a rapid consolidation will impact the economy. Some critics are concerned it could kill off small businesses while bolstering the behemoths.

Big Bezos made it seem like he expects workers to go back to their “old jobs” when the coronavirus dust settles:

• “We hope people who’ve been laid off will come work for us until they can go back to the jobs they had,” he wrote 2 days ago on Instagram.

That’s easy for Bezos to say: With billions of dollars in free cash flow, Amazon has enough money to weather a long storm.

But research from JPMorgan Chase shows half of small businesses only have enough cash saved up to stay open for 27 days or fewer -- which means that, for most small business workers, the “jobs they had” won’t exist anymore if the crisis goes on for more than a month.

from HUSTLE

 

[dozu888]

AMZN move makes perfect sense.... imagine the revenue SURGE this quarter... it's gonna push AMZN right to a new ATH when the earning releases...

then eventually everything goes back to normal the online biz should taper off while people go back to the malls and mom/pop corner shops.

 

[xandman]

An additional note is independent Amazon sellers in the US have been demolished. We will be dealing more with the Chinese black market and Amazon hosting them.

Nobody will have to worry about counterfeits, either. You will get the authentic goods straight from an unofficial distributor of the outsourced plant without knowledge of the US patent owner. Bypassing Amazon’s markup altogether.

No sense in spending more out of a sense of patriotic duty. It has never worked. Let’s go shopping.

 

[Tora]

This is an excellent policy of the company, because it allows them to get good professionals, provide them with interesting working conditions and, accordingly, to form a competent team, which in the future will bring income. It seems to me that everyone can get a job and big companies have to provide some programs or something like that to increase the number of jobs. It does not do any harm, but on the other hand it creates a positive image for the company and maybe even attracts more positive attention from investors and the government. So I don't see anything special about it, but I'm pleasantly impressed with such loyalty to people. It really deserves respect.

 

[Karin42]

Well, they immediately said that the company's functionality is growing, and thus the load on the company's staff is also growing, so it is not surprising that they need additional employees. And in fact, it makes sense to hire employees, even if they are fired, with experience. See for yourself, as they already have a little understanding of such processes, they need less time to get up to speed, they do not need to be trained so seriously. They can be given initial instructions, and a team of employees has already been formed, who will try and do their job at a high level. And if they also have a good income... ...then you can get a dream team that will adapt quickly in any situation and the company will less often lose qualified specialists...

 

[Ethilaloth]

Maybe the emphasis here is on the fact that they hire people who have been fired before. But it does not mean that these people have any problems as specialists. I would rather say that most of the time people are unemployed either because of job cuts or because people are provided with extremely unstable and difficult working conditions. Many companies save on everything, forgetting that people who work in decent conditions and are paid a decent wage can get a job many times faster and build a quality reputation, which is sure to bring more income in the future. This is an excellent solution that is fully justified.