Amazon keeps losing employees and it’s costing the company billions, leaked report suggests

Only one out of three new hires in 2021 stay with the company for 90 or more days, the documents allege

Amazon Hiring Freeze (AP)

Amazon is losing and replacing workers at such a rate that it costing the company $8bn annually, according to leaked internal documents.

The files, which include several internal research papers, slide decks and spreadsheets, say that Amazon should be using tracking data more to keep employees.

“Regretted attrition” – that is, workers choosing to leave the company – “occurs twice as often as unregretted attrition” (people being laid off or fired) “across all levels and businesses”, according to this research, which was published in January this year and seen by Engadget.

It also stated that “only one out of three new hires in 2021” stay with the company for 90 or more days.

“The primary reason exempt leaders are resigning is due to career development and promotions,” one of the papers stated, with Amazon seemingly reluctant to move people from the warehouses to management. Only 4 per cent of warehouse process assistants were promoted to area managers in 2021, while 39 per cent of Amazon leaders hired were “university graduates with little to no work nor people leadership experience”.

Amazon’s managers, some of which are on a salary of $110,000 per year, reportedly spend an average of 113 hours annually on training. Across Amazon’s 120,000 employees, this represents up to $715m of potential waste, the documents suggest.

Another document estimated that even a 15 per cent reduction in attrition would save Amazon $726m per year.

“As a company, we recognise that it’s our employees who contribute daily to our success and that’s why we’re always evaluating how we’re doing and ways we can improve. Attrition is something all employers face, but we want to do everything we can to make Amazon an employer of choice,” a spokesperson told Engadget.

“This is accomplished through offering good pay, comprehensive benefits, a safe workplace, and robust training and educational opportunities that are effective, yet always improving.”

The spokesperson did not confirm or deny any of the specific claims or figures made in the documents, rather saying that internal documents can have a “lack of reliable data, or are modified with corrected information”.