On: Tech Layoffs Keep Coming. Why Is Head Count Barely Budging?

Would genuinely like to know what additional value Amazon is getting from hiring nearly, what, 900k people since 2018?

I mean, seriously, what do they all do?

I can't fathom onboarding that many people in that space of time and integrating them into an employment structure in any reasonable way. It seems like 75% of your existing workforce would have to be dedicated to onboarding and training.

How are you seriously bringing that many people onboard and having them genuinely contribute?

As others have pointed out: logistics.

E.g. the German postal service employs some 600k people. DHL is another 600k. The logistics union has like 1.3M members. That's like 2% of all employees in Germany.

Those are labor intensive jobs. With minimal training.

It's a huge sector that you usually don't see (well, except for all that truck traffic).

They haven't pointed anything out, they just guessed.

I want to _actually know_ what those people are doing.

Just look it up.

Here is the pure number of facilities in Germany (2021)... Verdi (the relevant union) is collecting this data and distributing it.

17 fulfillment centers (logistics) 47 distribution centers (logistics) 7 sorting centers (logistics) 2 amazon fresh centers(logistics) 2 customer service centers 3 AWS centers 4 development centers

19k of the 28k workers are working in the fulfillment centers.

Its mostly likely storage/logistics workers. Their shipping volume likely significantly increased since 2018, which is reflected in revenue numbers.

Amazon is also infamous for high turnover rates. I doubt even a quarter of those 900k still work there.

The figures quoted revolve around the size of the company _today_ - so even if only one quarter of that 900k stayed, that means they onboarded even to make up for whomever left.

Their median stay is less than a year, isn't it ?

base on their 10q/k it looks like they increased headcount including turnover by that number