Amazon is grooming its vast workforce for the automation job apocalypse that the company itself is helping to bring about thanks to its robotics division.
As the company introduces more robots and automated systems to sort goods and fill orders at its warehouses, making more of its increasingly better-paid workforce redundant, the company apparently wants to be seen as
giving them a chance to learn new skills - like, for example, how to code - before shunting them aside.
As WSJ reports, Amazon is planning to spend $700 million - a drop in the bucket compared with the company's $240 billion annual revenue - to retrain a third of its American workforce to try and give them a fighting chance of still having a job once the robots take over. The program is designed to help workers find new jobs inside - or outside - the company.
The company expects to announce Thursday that it will retrain 100,000 workers by 2025 by expanding existing training programs and rolling out new ones meant to help its employees move into more advanced jobs inside the company or find new careers outside of it. The training is voluntary, and most of the programs are free to employees, the company said.
"Technology is changing our society, and it’s certainly changing work," said Jeff Wilke, chief executive of Amazon’s world-wide consumer business, adding that the initiative is meant to help workers "be prepared for the opportunities of the future."
As WSJ points out, the initiative breaks down to about $7,000 per worker. The company plans to save money by pressing some of its employees with a background in academia into teaching roles. As part of the initiative, Amazon will also expand a program for fulfillment-center employees called Amazon Career Choice which pays 95% of an employee’s tuition and fees for certificates and degrees in high-demand fields like being an aircraft mechanic or a nurse - even though the company doesn't hire anyone with those skill sets. It's just another example of Amazon being a magnanimous employer and ensuring that its warehouse workers might still be able to scratch out a living once they're no longer needed on the warehouse floor.
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