Amazon Order Fulfillment, Automation, and Technological Unemployment


Currently Amazon has 354 active facilities in the United States. The largest Amazon order fulfillment facility is located in Phoenix Arizona. It is one of five facilities in Phoenix and come in at 1,267,000 square feet. It provides fulfillment to the fifth most populous city in the United States, Phoenix.[1]

Automation is used heavily in fulfillment centers and has provided positive benefit to increase the efficiency and quality of fulfilling order processing. This is an example of a technological solution that benefits society.  Amazon has also noticed that that technology creates unemployment. That automation is viewed as a double-edge sword is not unique to Amazon though. Social media was created to build upon relationships, but it also brought about cyber-bullying.

Often technology advancements are usually designed with good intentions, their problems arise out of unforeseen  side effects. For example, the smart phone was designed to extend mobility and allow society to communicate and collaborate with others with greater availability. It has also greatly increased the amount distracted driving incidents.

 While automation does cause unemployment, there are still lots of jobs that are less likely to be automated. Most of these jobs tend to be found in social work or roles that require human interaction with critical and empathetic thinking. These roles include jobs such as physical therapist, emergency management directors, and medical specialist.[2]

1. http://www.mwpvl.com/html/amazon_com.html

2. https://learning.linkedin.com/blog/future-skills/a-list-of-the-jobs-that-are-most--and-least--likely-to-be-replac

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