Amazon will spend $ 700 million to recycle one-third of its US workforce by 2025

Amazon has announced that it will spend $ 700 million to convert 100,000 of its employees back to the United States by 2025, an initiative designed to help them explore new paths in society. This represents approximately $ 7,000 per employee for approximately one-third of its workforce in the United States. Amazon indicates that training programs will be offered to employees in its central offices, technology hubs, distribution centers, stores and the transportation network. For example, distribution center workers could be retrained as IT support technicians, and non-technical corporate employees could be trained in software engineering, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This announcement comes as Amazon is regularly criticized for its working conditions, particularly in its warehouses where employees are automatically tracked and fired to achieve their productivity goals. In less than a week, Amazon workers at the company's Shakopee, Minnesota warehouse are planning a strike that will coincide with the company's annual Prime Day sale. Last year, Amazon warehouse workers conducted similar strikes throughout Europe.

Training programs are Amazon's latest attempt to prove that she takes care of her workers. Last year, the company raised the minimum wage in the United States to $ 15 an hour and challenged its rivals to do the same. However, while the specter of automation hovers over the industry, many of these jobs might one day disappear, even though it is unlikely that fully automated warehouses will be viable during the next decade.

As The Wall Street Journal note, it can be very difficult for companies to know what skills will be sought in the future. Amazon's answer is that it has built its retraining programs around the knowledge of its own staff, suggesting that the most dynamic areas of activity are data mapping specialists, scientists, architects solutions and security engineers. the WSJ note that Amazon is struggling to find employees for its more technical roles, with 20,000 jobs currently available across the country.

It is interesting to note that Amazon's retraining programs will not only include useful skills within the company, they will also cover areas such as nursing and aircraft mechanics, according to the site. The Wall Street Journal. None of the training programs will require employees to commit to staying at Amazon, but research suggests that training programs can boost morale and may mean that employees are less likely to leave a company anyway.