Amazon plans to replace more than 500,000 jobs with robots

Amazon - Ảnh 1. — 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Daron Acemoglu said if the plan succeeds, Amazon - one of the largest employers in the US - will become a "job destroyer" - Photo: REUTERS

According to the New York Times , over the past two decades, no company has had a greater influence in shaping the American workplace than Amazon.

On its journey to becoming the second-largest employer in the US, Amazon has hired hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, built a huge fleet of contract drivers and pioneered the use of technology to recruit, monitor and manage employees.

Now, according to interviews and internal strategy documents obtained by The New York Times , Amazon executives believe the company is on the verge of a new turning point in the workplace: replacing more than half a million jobs with robots.

Amazon's US workforce has more than tripled since 2018, reaching nearly 1.2 million people.

But the company's automation team predicts that by 2027, Amazon could avoid hiring more than 160,000 additional employees, saving about $0.30 per item picked, packed and delivered.

Executives reported in 2024 that they hoped robotic automation would spare the company from having to expand its US workforce in the coming years, but projected product sales volume would double by 2033.

In centers designed for super-fast delivery, executives say Amazon is developing warehouses that require almost no human labor, aiming to automate 75% of operations.

The documents also recommend avoiding the terms “automation” or “artificial intelligence”, and instead using words like “advanced technology” or “cobot” – meaning robots that assist humans.

Professor Daron Acemoglu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT), winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, said Amazon is the business with the strongest motivation to promote automation.

He warned that if the plan succeeds, Amazon could become a “job destroyer” instead of a “job creator” as it has been in the past.

However, Amazon insisted that the documents obtained by the press did not fully reflect the company's overall recruitment strategy. Spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said the company would still hire 250,000 more employees for the holiday shopping season.

“Performance in one part of a business does not reflect the full impact it has, whether in a particular community or for the country as a whole,” stressed Udit Madan, the company’s global chief operating officer.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/amazon-du-kien-thay-the-hon-500-000-viec-lam-bang-robot-gay-lo-ngai-ve-tuong-lai-viec-lam-2025102210530117.htm