Amazon’s Automation Plan Threatens 600K Jobs & The Great Freeze Slows Hiring

Additional Resources

• ZipRecruiter 2025 Employer Survey
• Amazon Plans to Replace Half a Million Jobs With Robots
• What Will Really Affect Jobs in the Age of AI

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

In today’s job market headlines, Amazon plans to automate 75% of its operations, and Google’s chief economist shares his thoughts about how AI will affect work. But first, ZipRecruiter just released its 2025 annual employer survey, and they’re calling this moment the Great Freeze. Why? Because turnover has collapsed from 177% in 2023 to just 49.5% in 2025. That tells us employees and employers are both staying put, not really making any moves right now. Although I will still say 49.5% for turnovers, pretty big number. And nearly 76% of the employers in this survey said their top priority is employee retention, compared to only 15.7% focused on recruiting new talent.

0:51

That is a massive shift from what we saw during the talent war two years ago. That time seems like a distant memory right now, but the survey indicates that this current state that we’re in won’t last forever. ZipRecruiter’s data shows 63% of employers plan to ramp up hiring in 2026 with a big focus on entry-level roles. Now that is welcome news, to say the least. Although surprising and somewhat hard to believe at this particular moment, but still great to see. ZipRecruiter’s labor economist calls it the great thaw.

1:25

Okay, we didn’t really need another job market term, but we have one whether we ask for it or not. She’s quoted as saying, we’re seeing businesses ramp up entry-level hiring, drop degree requirements, and incorporate skills assessments into their process. The organizations that adapt to new technologies, prioritize skills, and invest in their workforce will gain a competitive advantage in securing top talent as the market shifts. Now, speaking of shifts, as AI transforms the workplace, soft skills, not hard skills, are becoming the most in demand. According to ZipRecruiter’s platform, the top three skills requested in 2025 are collaboration, customer service, and communication. Employers say the hardest skills to find right now include time management, attention to detail, critical thinking, and professionalism.

2:14

That one surprised me. Professionalism, really? Come on, everyone, do better. The survey also indicated that most employers view AI as more opportunity than threat. 51% say it’s creating new roles, but 38% have already used AI to replace some jobs. Now, when I see that number, I think 38% is significant. I mean, this is still a massive uh thing that we should pay attention to. As I say all the time, uh when I’m talking about AI, 38% have already used AI to replace some jobs. Let’s not just breeze past that as if it’s not a big deal. It is. About half in the survey, 52%, expect that AI will replace more roles in the near future.

2:58

But industries like technology and marketing anticipate job growth, not decline. I’m skeptical. I like to see it, but I am skeptical until proven otherwise because I see more reports and real data showing jobs are being replaced, not just enhanced by AI. So this is a thorough report. There’s a lot of interesting insight in it. I highly recommend reading it if you’re interested at ziprecruiter-research.org. Now let’s talk about a story that will certainly get a lot of attention, and this is absolutely about AI replacing jobs. The New York Times uncovered internal Amazon documents showing the company plans to automate up to 75% of its operations.

3:41

Amazon currently employs about 1.2 million people in the US, but its automation team projects it can avoid hiring 160,000 new workers by 2027, which will save them about 30 cents per item shipped. Their executives told Amazon’s board they expected double sales by 2033 without having to add any new workers, and that’s a move that could eliminate more than 600,000 future jobs. In the company’s most advanced facility, located in Streetport, Louisiana, they already use a thousand robots and operate with 25% fewer workers than they would otherwise need. And that’s a model being rolled out to 40 more sites by 2027.

4:22

Economist Darren Asimoglu from MIT warned that if Amazon succeeds, one of the biggest employers in America will become a net job destroyer. How’s that for an unambiguous statement? I mean, that is just a really shocking thing to see, even though I think about this, talk about it a lot. When you see it in black and white like this, this is Amazon actively taking making moves that will displace jobs. So my take on this is this is not a glimpse into the distant future. It’s happening right now.

4:54

Amazon already has a million robots working around the world. It’s not eliminators all at once, it’s just making sure that fewer humans are needed over time. And while that may sound efficient for Amazon, it’s going to accelerate the loss of middle-income blue-collar jobs in communities across the country. And as I repeatedly say when this subject comes up, when it comes to AI impacting the job market, we simply aren’t ready for how quickly things are changing, and it will happen at scale much sooner than most people realize.

5:27

Now, in a contradictory final headline today, the Washington Post ran a story written by Google’s chief economist and a Cambridge public policy professor, where they argue that the real challenge isn’t that AI will eliminate jobs, but that workers and employers aren’t yet ready to adapt to it. They point out that technology historically changes tasks, not entire occupations. The article references the 1950 U.S. Census, where of the 271 jobs listed, only one, an elevator operator, has disappeared because of automation. And while the US lost 3.5 million jobs to computerization since 1970, we’ve gained 19 million new ones in other industries.

6:10

Their main message in the article is that reskilling is everything. Since most of the 2030 workforce is already employed today, retraining them is imperative. And the authors highlight the success of employer-led programs and cite Google’s own Grow with Google Career Certificates as an example of how private sector initiatives can give workers verifiable, transferable AI-related skills.

6:32

How nice of the Google Chief Economist to say that Google’s the answer and we really don’t have to worry about AI taking jobs. Reading this, I believe they’re underestimating the degree of disruption AI will bring. To me, it’s just not as simple as history repeating itself or not being afraid because we can look to history, because we’ve never encountered a technology like this. And it’s not just about what AI has the potential to do long term, it’s the pace of development and the improvement that is happening and lightning speed that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

7:08

So make no mistake, I hope they’re right. I hope I’m wrong. And if they are, when 2030 comes, I will be happy to say that I missed the mark completely and that I was chicken little for nothing. So we’ll have to wait and see. And here’s your fun fact for the day the most productive day of the week for most office workers is Tuesday. So if you’re tackling your toughest task today, well, this is a day to do it. Good luck to you. It should go well, better than any other day, at least. So thank you for listening. I appreciate it. Please like and subscribe and share with anyone you think might be interested. And all as always, I welcome your feedback. Talk to you tomorrow.