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Robots replace 20,000 workers at Amazon

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During Christmas time, Amazon traditionally hires thousands of seasonal workers to meet the sharp rise in demand. However, the number of these workers is said to be declining by almost 20,000 this year. The reason for this is the ongoing automation.

For sales platforms, the Christmas business is always the time when sales figures are driven up again before the end of the year. This also applies to Amazon. Like many others, the American company has to hire thousands of workers every year for the Christmas business at short notice in order to be able to satisfy the sharp increase in demand.

However, this year almost 20,000 fewer workers will be needed than in the previous year. This is reported by the US magazine Quartz. According to the magazine, Amazon plans to employ "only" 100,000 additional workers in its own logistics centers in the USA this year. This is not because fewer orders are being expected, rather the reason seems to be the increasing automation of the centers, which results in less workers being needed.

Amazon most recently made the headlines with the announcement that the company would set a minimum internal wage of US$15. At the same time, Amazon has continued to focus on the development of robots, which should now lead to further job losses. This of course saves the company billions, so it can easily afford wage increases without endangering its own profitability.

In any case, it remains exciting to keep up with the current developments in automation and robotics, especially at Amazon.

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Cornelius Wolff, 2018-11- 7 (Update: 2018-11- 8)