Amazon says the median pay for jobs inside its fulfillment centers is “30% higher than that of people who work in traditional retail stores,” though the company doesn’t share the arithmetic that leads it to this conclusion. Amazon has previously said it pays workers in its fulfillment centers roughly $11 per hour, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median retail worker makes $10.15 per hour, while the median cashier makes $9.12 per hour.
In other words, while Amazon is paying above the industry average, it’s not paying its workers a 30% premium. (Amazon did not return requests for comment.) Furthermore, at 40 hours per week, an $11-per-hour salary comes to just $22,880 per year, which is below the federal poverty level for a family of four.
None of this is criticism of Amazon. The company deserves praise for heavily investing in its business and hiring full-time workers at a time when many other firms are playing it safe. Even an extremely healthy economy is going to include jobs that don’t pay very well. But the fact that President Obama has chosen an Amazon fulfillment center as the backdrop for a speech on how to bring back strong, middle-class jobs illustrates the difficult position the government finds itself in as it tries to encourage a more robust recovery.
In fact, new jobs like those found in Amazon fulfillment centers aren’t an antidote to the weak recovery; they are a symptom of it. Though we’ve added more than 7 million new jobs since the beginning of the recovery, those positions have been concentrated in the low-wage service sector: exactly the kind of jobs Amazon will be looking to fill during its expansion.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at
via Amazon’s Hiring Spree Shows Difficulties for American Middle Class | TIME.com.
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