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An employee looks for items in one of the corridors at an Amazon warehouse.

Carlos Jasso | Reuters

Amazon warehouse workers are suffering physical injuries and mental stress on the job as a result of the company’s extreme focus on speed and pervasive surveillance, according to a new study.

The study, released Wednesday by the University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development, includes responses from 1,484 current Amazon workers across 42 states and 451 facilities, in what the authors are calling the largest nationwide survey of Amazon workers to date.

Nearly 70% of Amazon employees who participated in the survey said they’ve had to take unpaid time off due to pain or exhaustion suffered on the job in the past month, while 34% have had to do so three or more times. The most common injury reported by workers was sprains, strains or tears, and nearly half of respondents said they had moderate or severe pain in the leg, knee or foot in the last three months on the job. More than half of workers said they’re burned out from their work at the company, and that response rate intensified the longer the employee had worked at Amazon.

The data adds to a drumbeat of scrutiny around Amazon’s workplace safety and treatment of warehouse employees. Regulators, lawmakers, rights groups and employees have criticized Amazon — which is the second-largest employer in the U.S., behind Walmart — over its labor record. The researchers estimate Amazon is the largest warehouse employer in the country, accounting for an estimated 29% of workers in the industry.

Amazon had roughly 1.46 million employees globally, as of the quarter ended June 30, and the majority are warehouse and delivery workers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are investigating conditions at several warehouses, while the U.S. Department of Justice is examining whether Amazon underreports injuries. In June, a Senate committee led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also launched a probe into Amazon’s warehouse safety.

Amazon has said it has made progress on lowering injury rates and that the company has made adjustments to working environments in order to reduce strain and repetitive movements. It has begun to automate some tasks and is also rolling out more robotic systems in warehouse facilities that the company claims can improve safety, although that prospect has been debated.

About 64% of workers who participated in the survey said they feel the safety of workers is a high priority at Amazon, but that sentiment is lower among those who reported negative impacts to their physical health from the job.

Workers fulfill orders at an Amazon fulfillment center on Prime Day in Melville, New York, US, on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. 

Johnny Milano | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Role of speed and surveillance

Safety critics have increasingly zeroed in on Amazon’s speedy pace of work and close monitoring of employee productivity as factors that lead to a heightened risk of injuries.

The survey results underscored that point, finding that those who reported injuries on the job while working at Amazon are more likely to say that keeping up is hard than workers who have not been injured.

Approximately 44% of workers surveyed said they couldn’t take breaks when they need to, according to the study. “A key mechanism for workers to maintain a fast pace of work without injury is the ability to take breaks and recover from periods of intense work,” the researchers said.

Employees pointed to “technology-enabled workplace monitoring” as something that reinforces the pace of work, while 53% of respondents said they always or most of the time “feel a sense of being watched or monitored in their work at the company.”

“We see clear evidence in our data that work intensity and monitoring contribute to negative health outcomes,” the researchers said.

Amazon uses a variety of metrics to measure warehouse workers’ activity on the job, the researchers said, including rate, or the number of tasks they’re expected to complete per hour; task time, which measures the average time between scans with a barcode scanner; and idle time, or “time off task,” which measures time a worker isn’t scanning items while on the clock.

Workers have argued that the time off task policy makes working conditions more strenuous and that it’s used as a tool to surveil workers. Amazon in 2021 adjusted its time off task policy so that it averages data over a longer period.

WATCH: Amazon’s worker safety hazards come under fire from regulators and the DOJ

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Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

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Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

A worker delivers Amazon packages in San Francisco on Oct. 24, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon on Thursday announced Prime members can access new fixed pricing for treatment of conditions like erectile dysfunction and men’s hair loss, its latest effort to compete with other direct-to-consumer marketplaces such as Hims & Hers Health and Ro.

Shares of Hims & Hers fell as much as 17% on Thursday, on pace for its worst day.

Amazon said in a blog post that Prime members can see the cost of a telehealth visit and their desired treatment before they decide to proceed with care for five common issues. Patients can access treatment for anti-aging skin care starting at $10 a month; motion sickness for $2 per use; erectile dysfunction at $19 a month; eyelash growth at $43 a month, and men’s hair loss for $16 a month by using Amazon’s savings benefit Prime Rx at checkout.

Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical for roughly $3.9 billion in July 2022, and Thursday’s announcement builds on its existing pay-per-visit telehealth offering. Video visits through the service cost $49, and messaging visits cost $29 where available. Users can get treatment for more than 30 common conditions, including sinus infection and pink eye.

Medications filled through Amazon Pharmacy are eligible for discounted pricing and will be delivered to patients’ doors in standard Amazon packaging. Prime members will pay for the consultation and medication, but there are no additional fees, the blog post said.

Amazon has been trying to break into the lucrative health-care sector for years. The company launched its own online pharmacy in 2020 following its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon introduced, and later shuttered, a telehealth service called Amazon Care, as well as a line of health and wellness devices.

The company has also discontinued a secretive effort to develop an at-home fertility tracker, CNBC reported Wednesday.

— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

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WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still ‘a dominant threat’

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WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still 'a dominant threat'

Chelsea Manning: Censorship still a dominant threat

Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says censorship is still “a dominant threat,” advocating for a more decentralized internet to help better protect individuals online.

Her comments come amid ongoing tension linked to online safety rules, with some tech executives recently seeking to push back over content moderation concerns.

Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, Manning said that one way to ensure online privacy could be “decentralized identification,” which gives individuals the ability to control their own data.

“Censorship is a dominant threat. I think that it is a question of who’s doing the censoring, and what the purpose is — and also censorship in the 21st century is more about whether or not you’re boosted through like an algorithm, and how the fine-tuning of that seems to work,” Manning said.

“I think that social media and the monopolies of social media have sort of gotten us used to the fact that certain things that drive engagement will be attractive,” she added.

“One of the ways that we can sort of countervail that is to go back to the more decentralized and distribute the internet of the early ’90s, but make that available to more people.”

Nym Technologies Chief Security Officer Chelsea Manning at a press conference held with Nym Technologies CEO Harry Halpin in the Media Village to present NymVPN during the second day of Web Summit on November 13, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Horacio Villalobos | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Asked how tech companies could make money in such a scenario, Manning said there would have to be “a better social contract” put in place to determine how information is shared and accessed.

“One of the things about distributed or decentralized identification is that through encryption you’re able to sort of check the box yourself, instead of having to depend on the company to provide you with a check box or an accept here, you’re making that decision from a technical perspective,” Manning said.

‘No longer secrecy versus transparency’

Manning, who works as a security consultant at Nym Technologies, a company that specializes in online privacy and security, was convicted of espionage and other charges at a court-martial in 2013 for leaking a trove of secret military files to online media publisher WikiLeaks.

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was later released in 2017, when former U.S. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Asked to what extent the environment has changed for whistleblowers today, Manning said, “We’re at an interesting time because information is everywhere. We have more information than ever.”

She added, “Countries and governments no longer seem to invest the same amount of time and effort in hiding information and keeping secrets. What countries seem to be doing now is they seem to be spending more time and energy spreading misinformation and disinformation.”

Manning said the challenge for whistleblowers now is to sort through the information to understand what is verifiable and authentic.

“It’s no longer secrecy versus transparency,” she added.

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

Jaidev Janardana, CEO of U.K. digital bank Zopa.

Zopa

LISBON, Portugal — British online lender Zopa is on track to double profits and increase annual revenue by more than a third this year amid bumper demand for its banking services, the company’s CEO told CNBC.

Zopa posted revenues of £222 million ($281.7 million) in 2023 and is expecting to cross the £300 million revenue milestone this year — that would mark a 35% annual jump.

The 2024 estimates are based on unaudited internal figures.

The firm also says it is on track to increase pre-tax profits twofold in 2024, after hitting £15.8 million last year.

Zopa, a regulated bank that is backed by Japanese giant SoftBank, has plans to venture into the world of current accounts next year as it looks to focus more on new products.

The company currently offers credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts that it offers through a mobile app — similar to other digital banks such as Monzo and Revolut which don’t operate physical branches.

“The business is doing really well. In 2024, we’ve hit or exceeded the plans across all metrics,” CEO Jaidev Janardana told CNBC in an interview Wednesday.

He said the strong performance is coming off the back of gradually improving sentiment in the U.K. economy, where Zopa operates exclusively.

Commenting on Britain’s macroeconomic conditions, Janardana said, “While it has been a rough few years, in terms of consumers, they have continued to feel the pain slightly less this year than last year.”

The market is “still tight,” he noted, adding that fintech offerings such as Zopa’s — which typically provide higher savings rates than high-street banks — become “more important” during such times.

“The proposition has become more relevant, and while it’s tight for customers, we have had to be much more constrained in terms of who we can lend to,” he said, adding that Zopa has still been able to grow despite that.

A big priority for the business going forward is product, Janardana said. The firm is developing a current account product which would allow users to spend and manage their money more easily, in a similar fashion to mainstream banking providers like HSBC and Barclays, as well as fintech upstarts such as Monzo.

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“We believe that there is more that the consumer can have in the current account space,” Janardana said. “We expect that we will launch our current account with the general public sometime next year.”

Janardana said consumers can expect a “slick” experience from Zopa’s current account offering, including the ability to view and manage multiple account bank accounts from one interface and access to competitive savings rates.

IPO ‘not top of mind’

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