According to the New York Times, Amazon has been introducing more advanced robots to its warehouses for many years and has always claimed that it will not use robots to replace employees or positions that were originally performed by humans. However, the newspaper cited leaked internal company documents and related interviews as showing that Amazon hopes to use robots to fill positions that should be filled by more than 600,000 U.S. employees by 2033.
According to reports, Amazon’s robotics team plans to automate 75% of the company’s operations and is expected to eliminate 160,000 new jobs by 2027. Although this move is not good for the company's public relations, automation will save Amazon US$0.3 for each item shipped, which will save the company US$12.6 billion in costs from 2025 to 2027 alone.
To the shock of the outside world, the company estimates that by 2033, product sales will double, profits will be higher, and less labor will need to be paid. Leaked materials also show that Amazon executives are considering participating in community projects to resolve the social backlash caused by the disappearance of jobs. Relevant materials also show that Amazon internally recommends avoiding the direct use of expressions such as "artificial intelligence" and "automation", preferring to use "advanced technology", and even considering using words such as "collaborative robots" (cobots) that weaken the replacement of humans by machines.
In response to the above reports, Amazon responded that the relevant documents were incomplete and could not represent the company's overall recruitment strategy, and it also denied instructing executives to avoid talking about certain terms.
Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu told the New York Times: "No company is as eager to pursue automation solutions as Amazon. Once Amazon finds a reliable profit model, this trend will quickly spread throughout the industry. If Amazon succeeds, one of the largest employers in the United States will go from creating jobs to net loss of jobs."
Previously in July this year, Amazon announced that it had deployed its 1 millionth robot in its warehouse. The risk of job losses caused by automation has been discussed for years at Amazon, a "robot-friendly" company, and these concerns will be exacerbated when the company introduces Digit, a humanoid robot, in 2023. Amazon and its partner manufacturer Agility Robotics have always insisted that robots will not replace employees, but will only take care of repetitive and tedious tasks. But as new models with more advanced capabilities like haptics continue to emerge, multiple reports suggest Amazon could save billions of dollars in costs by expanding automation.