Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, is now the richest person in the world after accumulating a net worth of about 140 billion dollars. Half of his employees, however, make less than $28,446 a year based on a report Amazon released detailing its median salary. With employees making nearly $14/hr, Bezos makes more than the median salary every nine seconds. Many believe Bezos acquired his distinction at the expense of Amazon workers. On multiple occasions, factory workers have dealt with poor working conditions such as reoccurring accidents in warehouses and being forced to work in fast-past conditions.
Amazon is now the second largest private employer in the United States. This being said, many would assume the company respectively pays its employees as well. Yet there are many costs to take into account for the company -one main one being warehouses. There are hundreds of Amazon warehouses across the state and the company must maintain as well as run them efficiently. It’s also been found that the presence of Amazon warehouses in a given area may drive down local warehouse wages, according to the Economist, which cited declines of more than 30% in Lexington County, South Carolina, 17% in Chesterfield, Virginia, and 16% in Tracy, California. Amazon’s tendency to position warehouses in rural areas also plays into the difficulty of workers to leave and find better work.
The company’s reliance on unskilled labor is another possible explanation for its pay. The reason behind this being the highly automated state of the warehouses themselves, in turn, decreasing the demand for skilled labor. Another factor as to why Amazon pays its workers below-market wages lies in the additional benefits they receive such as health and retirement saving plans, job training, and company shares.
With a continued increase in workforce, we’ll have to wait and see whether or not Amazon decides to raise the salaries of their factory workers before they decide they’ve had enough.
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