
Amazon Career Choice Program - jergason
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=amb_link_1?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200979350&view-type=stand-alone
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jellicle
Okay, that's peachy. Here's the flipside:

\--most people working in Amazon warehouses are employed by temporary staffing
firms, not Amazon

\--most people working in Amazon warehouses don't come anywhere near 3 years
of tenure before quitting or being fired

\--reimbursement is limited to $2,000/year for four years, while $5,000/year
is pretty much the minimum direct cost to take such programs

\--the program is limited to full-time workers, so only those who can take
classes while working full-time and mandatory-or-you-get-fired overtime can
partake

The number of warehouse workers eligible for this is nearly zero. Might even
be precisely zero.

~~~
munin
don't they work 10-12 hour shifts? sometimes more? for 6 days a week?

also aren't the warehouses generally in areas of the country that don't really
have schools?

yeah, I don't think they're going to be paying much out on this program ...

~~~
brianbreslin
almost all of these communities have community colleges or junior colleges
nearby (less than an hour away)

~~~
caladri
Two hours of travel round trip to go to, what, an hour of class? And that's
alongside however far one has to drive to work in a day. So maybe you can get
away with doing that one day a week? Two? It's going to be a very slow, very
miserable slog. Even an hour of travel total, which is probably near the
average minimum, is a lot when your days are as packed as Amazon's full-time
warehouse employees.

~~~
NoPiece
What data do you have that an hour each way is the average? I looked up a few
Amazon warehouses. The Irving, TX facility is 6 miles from North Lake College.
The Phoenix warehouse is 10 miles from Glendale CC, and the one in Lebanon TN
is 20 miles from Volunteer State CC.

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eli
No doubt this is partly in response to articles like this:
[http://articles.mcall.com/2011-09-18/news/mc-allentown-
amazo...](http://articles.mcall.com/2011-09-18/news/mc-allentown-amazon-
complaints-20110917_1_warehouse-workers-heat-stress-brutal-heat) which
describe surprisingly poor working conditions in an Amazon warehouse in rural
PA.

" _During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in
ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered
other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to
work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported
to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time._ "

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patdennis
Key information that's missing from the title: _up to a maximum of $2,000 per
year_

~~~
stephengillie
In Amazon's home state of WAshington, 1 year of tuition costs:

    
    
      Institution	Comm. Coll[1]	% of $2000	University[2]	% of $2000
      Resident	$4,000		50%		$10,347		19.3%
      Non-Resident	$9,235		21.7%		$27,831		7.2%
    

[1]<http://www.sbctc.edu/college/f_tuition.aspx>

[2]<http://admit.washington.edu/Paying/Cost>

~~~
prostoalex
This includes colleges with football teams and Olympic swimming pools. As
others have noted, education credits in WA tend to be cheap when it's just the
education.

Not that it matters for home state advantage - their warehouse workers are
spread across the country, not in the most north-western point of the
continental US.

~~~
pkamb
Go Huskies

------
tarice
Judging from this news article[1], it seems like there aren't many warehouse
workers that 1) work there full-time, 2) have worked for 3 years, and 3) have
the free time to pursue a degree.

Then again, the money may be targeted towards warehouse managers, who Amazon
could see as potential higher-ups in the main organization if they had formal
training.

[1] [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-
mcclelland-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-
free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor)

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donnfelker
While some may argue this is not much in regards to tuition, this can get you
VERY far in a community college. See this tuition graph here:
<http://www.maricopa.edu/about/?tuition>

I went to Maricopa community colleges and I had better instruction there than
I had at the big schools. The best teachers I had were at community college.

So while some argue its not much, its almost enough to cover your tuition for
a year at a community college.

If someone has the drive, they'll go do it and take advantage of the program.

~~~
xyzzyb
I absolutely agree. I attended College of the Albemarle for two years before
transferring into UNC-Chapel Hill.

The teaching quality at COA was astoundingly much higher at COA than at UNC.

At UNC most of my classes, even at the higher level, were taught by graduate
students who had clearly received little to no instruction on how to
effectively teach. They were there to learn and research, not to teach.

At COA my classes were taught by professors with a graduate degree in the
field (usually a PhD) who were dedicated to the art of teaching. They were
there to teach, not to research.

Of course higher education should be dedicated to research and expanding our
knowledge, but that doesn't mean that they are good at sharing the basics.

~~~
elangoc
Hmm, never heard of College of Albermarle. I don't disbelieve you -- most
survey courses get taught in the 50-300 person seater rooms at UNC-CH. I just
don't recall grad students teaching most of my courses, even the survey
courses, whether they were in CS or Math (my majors) or the graduation
requirements from social sciences, philosophy, etc. I had only one course
taught by a grad student -- graphics. Which was your major at UNC-CH?

~~~
xyzzyb
My degree is in History. I also took a lot of math and computer science
courses: all but one of my math courses was taught by a grad student. All but
a few of my history courses were taught by grad students.

Since I transferred in I never actually took one of the 100+ person courses.

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notjustanymike
For a company who has repeatedly come under fire for hellish work conditions
in their warehouses, a tuition reimbursement program seems like a rather
pathetic PR nod. What hourly employee of theirs is going to have the time and
3 year commitment to earn this reward? Never mind the fact that most of their
employees are temps from external agencies.

~~~
ybother
"repeatedly"? Source? I've worked in Amazon warehouses and they are far and
above any other workhouse job in terms of both safety, pay and workload
required. Granted, I only worked at 2 different Amazon warehouses so my sample
small is probably smaller than yours.

~~~
rickmb
It all depends on what your standards are. The working conditions at Amazon
warehouses as reported repeatedly by the press would be completely illegal in
most Western countries outside the US.

~~~
tomkarlo
Well, that's meaningless, given that they're in that US. By that logic, the
working conditions at most white-collar jobs in the US would also be below
your standards, as many EU countries require more vacation, shorter hours
(France) and other work rules that don't apply here in the US.

You can't expect Amazon or Walmart to adhere to the laws of a country a
facility's not located in. If you think the laws aren't strict enough, then
change the laws.

~~~
lancewiggs
Well we should expect that to happen. we should expect companies to have their
own standards which are superior to the mandated minimums.

Apple are doing this with sourcing.

The big mining firms, like BHP Billiton, often apply much higher environmental
and safety standards than the local laws. I saw this in a plant in Mozambique,
several in South Africa and Australia and one in Colombia. Australia had the
toughest laws, but even there the imposed corporate standards were higher than
the minimum. It's the right thing to do, but it's also just good business to
treat your staff and environment well.

~~~
politician
No, Apple is doing this because of pressure from their consumer base in the
US, and not from an altruistic sense of right and wrong. It's just good
business.

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lizthegrey
Duplicate article (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4279905>), with
misleading title this time. This does not apply to the vast majority of
warehouse employees. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280530>

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droithomme
This program only covers inexpensive two year community college degrees, and
only for a small number of subjects.

The subject limitation I can understand, it's not unreasonable for the
employer to lock out degrees that they feel might not directly benefit the
company.

But the two year degree restriction, which locks out all serious degrees and
universities, has no justification other than being incredibly cheap on
reimbursements. It would be better to have nothing at all since community
college tuition isn't that expensive to begin with. If I was there I'd
interpret this limitation as more of an insult than anything, and I have no
doubt that many there will see it the same way once they look into the
details.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Explain how it could possibly be better to have no program at all?

~~~
Klinky
By creating a program such as this it deflects attention from the working
conditions of Amazon's employees while actually doing very little to benefit
them.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I understand that you may think that $2k/year is very little, but to many
people it's a small fortune. Anyway, why do you think it's necessary to
deflect attention from their working conditions? Warehouses aren't the most
comfortable working environments in any case, that should not be surprising.
Not everything can be a nice air conditioned office.

~~~
Klinky
I agree that $2,000 is a decent chunk of change, but as has been pointed out
by others the hoops to jump through to get the $2,000 excludes a huge quantity
of Amazon's workforce. So again, Amazon gets good PR, while conditions and
compensation for much of their workforce stays the same.

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mangler
In all fairness, allowing people who are unhappy, in a first warehouse job, or
in skilled occupations to train themselves out of their unhappiness is a very
novel and extremely favourable idea.

This is like saying, it's not you, here's a chance, take your time, we'll help
you and then move on when you are ready. I wish every company did that... It
is way better than laying you off and even more superior to keeping you in a
job you resent and do just because you need to pay the bills...

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lsc
"Unlike traditional tuition reimbursement programs, we exclusively fund
education only in areas that are well-paying and in high demand according to
sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we fund those areas
regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. In
addition, the Amazon Career Choice Program will pay tuition and fees in
advance rather than reimbursement after the completion of the course."

That is /really interesting/ I mean, why? from an employer's perspective, it
seems like you'd keep your low-skilled employees longer if you helped them
pursue their dream of, you know, something unemployable. (I mean, assuming
they are going to learn something that doesn't help amazon, amazon keeps
people longer if they learn something that isn't in demand.)

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ehao
Again? This feels like Amazon PR is spamming HN...

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hosh
Sounds like Amazon is telegraphing its intentions for increasing automation in
warehouses, a la Zappos. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0>

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AYBABTME
I find it's kinda cheap. 2000$ per year... looks more like recruitment
marketing without too much commitment, than an actual initiative for the well-
beings of the employees.

I like to think "do things right, or don't do them". In that case, I'd prefer
if Amazon would go all the way and give maybe, 5..8k$, or give nothing at all.

2k$ a year, that's really not much. I like the initiative, I was reading it
and thinking "Hum, this is interesting and nice" until I got to the "huh
what?" of the 2k$ line.

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orbitingpluto
I just took a peak on glassdoor.com.

Average salary for a "Amazon.com Warehouse Associate Salary": $24,756

With 10 hour days (as mentioned in the comments) that works out to be...
disgusting.

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keeptrying
A friend of mine commented that this is just a way to minimize the negative
impact for when Amazon substitutes employees with Kiva robots.

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whit537
"[...] whether that's at Amazon or in another industry."

Because, you know, Amazon is the only player in its industry. Oh wait ...

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rabidsnail
This, combined with the recent Kiva Systems acquisition, makes me suspect a
layoff is on the horizon.

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icco
Question: would Amazon hire anyone with just an associates degree?

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davewicket
again?

