Last year, only a third of Amazon’s new hires stayed with the company for more than 90 days before resigning, being fired or being laid off, according to leaked documents obtained by Engadget. The report is the latest indication that Amazon has serious employee retention issues, and it reveals the company’s estimate that employee turnover costs nearly $8 billion a year for its global consumer operations team.
The report, based on Amazon’s internal research papers, slide decks and spreadsheets, claims that employees are twice as likely to leave voluntarily, rather than because of being laid off or fired. It also says the problem is widespread across the company, not just among warehouse workers; from entry-level positions to vice presidents, the lowest the turnover of one of the company’s 10 employees was nearly 70 percent, with the highest rising to a whopping 81.3 percent.
The report doesn’t specify which category of employees had the highest turnover, but it’s common knowledge that Amazon’s warehouses and other fulfillment facilities have more revenue than the rest of the industry. According to a report of The New York Timesabout three percent of the company’s hourly employees left every week, leaking internal memos obtained by recode show that the company is concerned about literally running out of people who would be willing to work for it in the coming years (and even earlier, in some areas).
The gradient problem is from top to bottom
But while some Amazon warehouse workers have made it very clear why people don’t necessarily want to stay in those roles, Engadget notes that executives also leave because of “development and promotions” issues or otherwise advance their careers at Amazon. Part of this may have to do with the training programs the company offers, which are said to be important to grow at Amazon, but which are run seemingly disorganized and potentially wasteful, according to documents cited in the report. Amazon did not immediately respond The Verges request for comment on Engadget‘s report.
While Amazon certainly seems to have issues with people leaving, it has also been criticized for the way it handles layoffs as well. Last year, reports noted that Amazon’s goal is to filter out the bottom 6 percent of employees, and that employees at risk of losing their jobs didn’t necessarily know this so they could actively work on improving their business. performance. In the past, there have also been concerns about the role of automation in the process of tracking warehouse workers’ performance and firing them if they failed to meet the company’s rigorous standards.