Karen Weise

And so while, yes, they may be focusing on efficiency here, there might be other parts of the business, including in their warehousing operation, that they might grow as they make more investments in the future.

Hmm.

And an example they pointed to is they've been building more delivery stations in areas that are more remote and have a smaller population.

And so those are new jobs in places that didn't have them and letting customers in more rural areas get faster deliveries.

The other thing they say is that they're very focused on the new jobs that are being created because of automation and robotics.

And there's a type of role that's essentially a technician or a mechanic that works with the robots.

And they do everything from maintenance.

They do repairs.

They handle what are called exceptions.

Like if the robot drops something, they are able to safely go and to deal with all of that.

And so those jobs pay more.

And they have more of a career path than a traditional Amazon warehouse job does.

The main issue is that there just aren't as many of them when you compare it to the number of regular hourly worker jobs that won't be needed.

Yeah, I mean, they see this as essential for being competitive in the retail environment with endlessly demanding consumers.

And some of the projections I saw in a few years, it'll save 30 cents per item, which is actually kind of a lot.

And then they can use that 30 cents to lower costs or to invest in new things.

And

At its core, Amazon's reason for being isn't to be an employer.

It's a customer-centric company, and they see this as a way to grow.

I mean, Amazon is the most advanced in this kind of push towards automation, but their competitors are working on it too.