Amazon and the Labor Shortage

<p>Amazon is constantly hiring. Data has shown that the company has had a turnover rate of about 150 percent a year.</p><p>For the founder, Jeff Bezos, worker retention was not important, and the company built systems that didn’t require skilled workers or extensive training — it could hire and lose people all of the time.</p><p>Amazon has been able to replenish its work force, but the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of this approach.</p><p>We explore what the labor shortage has meant for Amazon and the people who work there. </p><p>Guest: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/karen-weise?smid=pc-thedaily">Karen Weise</a>, a technology correspondent, based in Seattle for The New York Times.</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/signup/NTTD?smid=pc-thedaily">Sign up here</a> to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/the-daily?module=inline">subscribe to our newsletter</a>. </p><p>Background reading: </p><ul><li>Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers churn through Amazon’s vast mechanism that hires, monitors, disciplines and fires. Amid the pandemic,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html"> the already strained system lurched</a>.</li></ul><p>For more information on today’s episode, visit <a href="http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily">nytimes.com/thedaily</a>. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. </p>