{"id":243065,"date":"2025-07-06T16:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/243065\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T16:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T16:10:09","slug":"goodbye-to-humans-in-warehouses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/243065\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye to humans in warehouses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon is going to put an end to human labour. Yes, it has reached a turning point that will change how we view salaried work forever: robots will outnumber human employees in warehouses around the world.<\/a> The company that until a few years ago was seen as a major job creator has now said no more human labour, it wants more robots.\u00a0And yes, it will be the first time that robots outnumber human employees,<\/a> even though Amazon already has one million machines, from robotic arms to wheeled transporters since 2020.<\/p>\n

Layoffs continue and job automation doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing down, because of course, not only does it improve company productivity, but machines don\u2019t get sick, don\u2019t ask for personal days, and don\u2019t demand their labour rights\u2026\u00a0The data may be very optimistic for Amazon, but workers are seeing their jobs being taken away\u2026 and there\u2019s no turning back. Here\u2019s what\u2019s happening inside Amazon\u2019s warehouses.<\/p>\n

The rise of robots at Amazon<\/p>\n

Amazon isn\u2019t new to this, but the current data creates a lot of uncertainty. Robots started arriving in Amazon warehouses in 2020, but since then their number has increased fivefold, now nearly matching the number of human employees in their distribution centers. Data shows that each worker shipped more than 3,870 packages last year, compared to just 175 in 2015. Of course, that number helps explain the changes Amazon wants to keep making.<\/p>\n

Do robots improve work life?<\/p>\n

Of course, Amazon would say yes, it\u2019s their idea!<\/p>\n

The company claims that robots reduce physical strain and allow employees to avoid repetitive tasks, since the machines now do those. Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, said that AI will help leave behind repetitive work and make jobs \u201cmore interesting.\u201d But he also admitted that \u201clike with every technical transformation, fewer people will be doing the jobs that get automated\u201d, so we\u2019re facing a reality: salaried work is disappearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be other jobs\u201d, he said, but the reality? Families with no income and machines doing our work.<\/p>\n

The price of efficiency<\/p>\n

Even Amazon claims it has trained 700,000 employees (that\u2019s a good number of people trained) since 2019, it\u2019s also true that it has laid off over 27,000 workers since 2022 (and this is not a good number of people laid off\u2026) including recent cuts in the retail and devices divisions. Automation seems to be moving faster than job retraining, and many eliminated positions are not being replaced, but substituted\u2026 It\u2019s normal people feel afraid about it\u2026<\/p>\n

The balance between innovation and jobs<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said in whispers that these changes driven by AI help bring the product closer to the customer and \u201cimprove the experience for both workers and consumers\u201d (wait, which workers!!!?).<\/p>\n

At the same time, the fear of staff reductions is present among all company workers, especially those in more routine roles\u2026 They\u2019re hanging by a thread.<\/p>\n

An inevitable future, but inclusive?<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s case is just one example, but it could set the trend for many other companies, unfortunately for workers. The use of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) to replace human tasks presents a new work reality that not everyone is ready to face\u2026 The key will be if workers receive the training needed to adapt to an increasingly automated environment or not.<\/p>\n

Will Amazon keep its promise of a future where automation benefits everyone, or are we facing a revolution that will leave workers behind? We still don\u2019t know, they either. For now, the only clear thing is that robots are no longer the future\u2026 they are here to stay (and to steal in some way).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon is going to put an end to human labour. Yes, it has reached a turning point that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-243065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114807165605973309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}