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.
CEO of Supermicro Charles Liang speaks during the Reuters NEXT conference in New York City, U.S., December 10, 2024.
Mike Segar | Reuters
PARIS — Super Micro plans to increase its investment in Europe, including ramping up manufacturing of its AI servers in the region, CEO Charles Liang told CNBC in an interview that aired on Wednesday.
The company sells servers which are packed with Nvidia chips and are key for training and implementing huge AI models. It has manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, but could expand to other places.
“But because the demand in Europe is growing very fast, so I already decided, indeed, [there’s] already a plan to invest more in Europe, including manufacturing,” Liang told CNBC at the Raise Summit in Paris, France.
“The demand is global, and the demand will continue to improve in [the] next many years,” Liang added.
Liang’s comments come less than a month after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited various parts of Europe, signing infrastructure deals and urging the region to ramp up its computing capacity.
Growth to be ‘strong’
Super Micro rode the growth wave after OpenAI’s ChatGPT boom boosted demand for Nvidia’s chips, which underpin big AI models. The server maker’s stock hit a record high in March 2024. However, the stock is around 60% off that all-time high over concerns about its accounting and financial reporting. But the company in February filed its delayed financial report for its 2024 fiscal year, assuaging those fears.
In May, the company reported weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter, raising concerns about demand for its product.
However, Liang dismissed those fears. “Our growth rate continues to be strong, because we continue to grow our fundamental technology, and we [are] also expanding our business scope,” Liang said.
“So the room … to grow will be still very tremendous, very big.”
Jeff Williams, chief operating officer of Apple Inc., during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, June 9, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple said on Tuesday that Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, a 27-year company veteran, will be retiring later this year.
Current operations leader Sabih Khan will take over much of the COO role later this month, Apple said in a press release. For his remaining time with the comapny, Williams will continue to head up Apple’s design team, Apple Watch, and health initiatives, reporting to CEO Tim Cook.
Williams becomes the latestlongtime Apple executive to step down as key employees, who were active in the company’s hyper-growth years, reach retirement age. Williams, 62, previously headed Apple’s formidable operations division, which is in charge of manufacturing millions of complicated devices like iPhones, while keeping costs down.
He also led important teams inside Apple, including the company’s fabled industrial design team, after longtime leader Jony Ive retired in 2019. When Williams retires, Apple’s design team will report to CEO Tim Cook, Apple said.
“He’s helped to create one of the most respected global supply chains in the world; launched Apple Watch and overseen its development; architected Apple’s health strategy; and led our world class team of designers with great wisdom, heart, and dedication,” Cook said in the statement.
Williams said he plans to spend more time with friends and family.
“June marked my 27th anniversary with Apple, and my 40th in the industry,” Williams said in the release.
Williams is leaving Apple at a time when its famous supply chain is under significant pressure, as the U.S. imposes tariffs on many of the countries where Apple sources its devices, and White House officials publicly pressure Apple to move more production to the U.S.
Khan was added to Apple’s executive team in 2019, taking an executive vice president title. Apple said on Tuesday that he will lead supply chain, product quality, planning, procurement, and fulfillment at Apple.
The operations leader joined Apple’s procurement group in 1995, and before that worked as an engineer and technical leader at GE Plastics. He has a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York.
Khan has worked closely with Cook. Once, during a meeting when Cook said that a manufacturing problem was “really bad,” Khan stood up and drove to the airport, and immediately booked a flight to China to fix it, according to an anecdote published in Fortune.
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives to “Shut up” on Tuesday after the analyst offered three recommendations to the electric vehicle company’s board in a post on X.
Ives has been one of the most bullish Tesla observers on Wall Street. With a $500 price target on the stock, he has the highest projection of any analyst tracked by FactSet.
But on Tuesday, Ives took to X with critical remarks about Musk’s political activity after the world’s richest person said over the weekend that he was creating a new political party called the America Party to challenge Republican candidates who voted for the spending bill that was backed by President Donald Trump.
Ives’ post followed a nearly 7% slide in Tesla’s stock Monday, which wiped out $68 billion in market cap. Ives called for Tesla’s board to create a new pay package for Musk that would get him 25% voting control and clear a path to merge with xAI, establish “guardrails” for how much time Musk has to spend at Tesla, and provide “oversight on political endeavors.”
Ives published a lengthier note with other analysts from his firm headlined, “The Tesla board MUST Act and Create Ground Rules For Musk; Soap Opera Must End.” The analysts said that Musk’s launching of a new political party created a “tipping point in the Tesla story,” necessitating action by the company’s board to rein in the CEO.
Still, Wedbush maintained its price target and its buy recommendation on the stock.
“Shut up, Dan,” Musk wrote in response on X, even though the first suggestion would hand the CEO the voting control he has long sought at Tesla.
In an email to CNBC, Ives wrote, “Elon has his opinion and I get it, but we stand by what the right course of action is for the Board.”
Musk’s historic 2018 CEO pay package, which had been worth around $56 billion and has since gone up in value, was voided last year by the Delaware Court of Chancery. Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that Tesla’s board members had lacked independence from Musk and failed to properly negotiate at arm’s length with the CEO.
Tesla has appealed that case to the Delaware state Supreme Court and is trying to determine what Musk’s next pay package should entail.
Ives isn’t the only Tesla bull to criticize Musk’s continued political activism.
Analysts at William Blair downgraded the stock to the equivalent of a hold from a buy on Monday, because of Musk’s political plans and rhetoric as well as the negative impacts that the spending bill passed by Congress could have on Tesla’s margins and EV sales.
“We expect that investors are growing tired of the distraction at a point when the business needs Musk’s attention the most and only see downside from his dip back into politics,” the analysts wrote. “We would prefer this effort to be channeled towards the robotaxi rollout at this critical juncture.”
Trump supporter James Fishback, CEO of hedge fund Azoria Partners, said Saturday that his firm postponed the listing of an exchange-traded fund, the Azoria Tesla Convexity ETF, that would invest in the EV company’s shares and options. He began his post on X saying, “Elon has gone too far.”
“I encourage the Board to meet immediately and ask Elon to clarify his political ambitions and evaluate whether they are compatible with his full-time obligations to Tesla as CEO,” Fishback wrote.
Musk said Saturday that he has formed the America Party, which he claimed will give Americans “back your freedom.” He hasn’t shared formal details, including where the party may be registered, how much funding he will provide for it and which candidates he will back.
Tesla’s stock is now down about 25% this year, badly underperforming U.S. indexes and by far the worst performance among tech’s megacaps.
Musk spent much of the first half of the year working with the Trump administration and leading an effort to massively downsize the federal government. His official work with the administration wrapped up at the end of May, and his exit preceded a public spat between Musk and Trump over the spending bill and other matters.
Musk, Tesla’s board chair Robyn Denholm and investor relations representative Travis Axelrod didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.