Amazon eyes major automation push, plans to replace over 500,000 jobs with robots: Report

The e-commerce giant recruited hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, built a vast network of contract drivers, and led the way in using technology to hire, track, and manage its workforce.

Now, interviews and internal strategy documents reviewed by The New York Times reveal that Amazon executives see the company approaching its next major transformation — replacing more than half a million jobs with robots.

Amazon’s U.S. workforce has more than tripled since 2018, reaching nearly 1.2 million employees.

Yet its automation team projects the company could avoid hiring more than 160,000 additional workers in the U.S. by 2027, saving roughly 30 cents per item picked, packed, and shipped.

Executives told the board last year that they expect robotic automation to help Amazon sustain its growth while avoiding further expansion of its U.S. workforce, even as product sales are projected to double by 2033.

At newer facilities built for ultra-fast deliveries, Amazon is experimenting with warehouse models that employ very few humans.

Internal papers also outline the robotics team’s long-term ambition to automate up to 75% of its operations.

The documents recommend steering clear of terms like “automation” and “artificial intelligence,” preferring “advanced technology” or substituting “robot” with “cobot” to convey human collaboration.

“Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate,” said Daron Acemoglu, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and last year’s Nobel laureate in economic science. If Amazon’s plans succeed, “one of the biggest employers in the United States will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator,” he added.

Amazon, however, said the documents obtained by The Times were incomplete and did not reflect its full hiring strategy.

Company spokesperson Kelly Nantel said Amazon still plans to recruit 250,000 employees for the upcoming holiday season.

“That you have efficiency in one part of the business doesn't tell the whole story for the total impact it might have,” said Udit Madan, head of worldwide operations at Amazon, “either in a particular community or for the country overall.”