Amazon pushes ahead with replacement plan with robots such as 75% automation of work by 2033\n Warehouse work\n It may be the starting point for mass layoffs such as Walmart and UPS
Mass layoffs of workers due to attacks by artificial intelligence and robots are approaching. Amazon, which is responsible for hiring 1.2 million people, the world’s largest e-commerce company and the second largest number in the United States, has come up with an eerie scenario of mass layoffs.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 21st (local time) that Amazon is pursuing a plan to automate 75% of its business operations by 2030 and replace up to 600,000 jobs with robots.
According to the plan, Amazon’s automation team is seeking to replace 160,000 people in the U.S. by 2027, reducing the workforce by 30%. Management estimates that robot automation could replace more than 600,000 workers by 2033. Amazon’s robotics team has the ultimate goal of automating 75% of its operations to create warehouses that require little manpower.
With an automated future just around the corner, Amazon has begun planning to mitigate the impact of unemployment on its communities. We are considering building our image as a good company by participating more in community events such as parades.
Amazon is considering using “advanced technology” or “cobot,” which means robot-to-human collaboration, instead of terms such as “automation” and “AI” in the process of automating robots.
Amazon’s plan could have a profound impact on blue-collar jobs across the country and could serve as a model for other companies such as Walmart and UPS, the largest private employer in the U.S., the NYT warned. There are also concerns that automation could have a particularly significant impact on people of color, as warehouse workers at Amazon are about three times more likely to be Black than typical U.S. workers.
“No company will be more incentive than Amazon in finding ways to automate,” said Darren Stilmoglu, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who researched job automation and won the Nobel Prize in Economics last year. “If the plan is successful, one of the largest employers in the United States will be a “job destroyer,” not a “job creator.”
Founder Jeff Bezos has been working on robot automation for a long time. It started with the $775 million acquisition of robot manufacturer Kiva in 2012. With the introduction of Amazon’s robots, workers are no longer walking miles across warehouses, but hockey’s puck-shaped robots are moving products.
Last year, Amazon opened a state-of-the-art warehouse in Shreveport, Louisiana, to experiment with robotic automation. In Shreveport, 1,000 robots were used to hire fewer employees than a quarter of the year before, according to a report. Next year, the company plans to introduce more robots to cut employee employment by half. Amazon will introduce the Shreveport model at approximately 40 facilities by the end of 2027, starting with a large warehouse that just opened in Virginia Beach.
link