Amazon and Walmart are hiring hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, as the invisible retail underclass form the ‘backbone of our economy’ this holiday season
By: Business Insider
Tags: Shopping, Ecommerce, Covid 19, Amazon, Walmart

By Kate Taylor

Every Saturday at 6:30 p.m., a worker at a Walmart distribution center starts his first of three nearly 12-hour shifts at what he calls “a COVID box” in Shelby, North Carolina.

Many coworkers fail to follow mask requirements, the worker said. Social distancing is difficult, especially as groups crowd together at the beginning and ends of shifts. Rumors of COVID cases permeate the distribution center, with little communication from higher-ups when coworkers stop showing up to work. And, with the holiday shopping season in full swing, more and more workers are being hired.

“Fear overcasts our atmosphere at work,” he told Business Insider. “People are afraid — legitimately afraid — about their wellbeing.”

The worker spoke with Business Insider on the condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions. But, he is far from the only warehouse worker concerned about safety during the pandemic, especially as the ranks of employees in distribution and fulfillment centers swell during the holidays.

This employee and 1.2 million others working in warehouses across America are the invisible underclass as retailers head into the peak shopping season. Traditional images of holiday shopping are filled with frantic cashiers and bustling retail workers. But, in 2020, the success or failure of the season rests on warehouse employees more than ever before.

From April to October, the US added 146,700 warehouse and storage jobs, as people stuck inside turned to online shopping. The end of the year is already peak time for warehouses, when companies hire thousands of seasonal workers to make sure presents arrive at stores and shoppers’ homes before Christmas Day. This holiday season, even more workers will be needed in warehouses — just as COVID cases surge across the US.

“The retail worker is no longer the guy that helps you check out,” Juan Arias, a senior consultant at real estate data firm CoStar Group, said. “You probably don’t need help checking out anymore.”

Instead, warehouse workers have become “the backbone of our economy.”

“Let’s hope that nothing happens with these workers,” Arias said. “Because right now … our economy is basically working on the backs of these people.”

Warehouse work has exploded in recent years

Amazon and other retailers have hired hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers. Photo: Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

Retailers rely on a web of warehouses across America to keep shelves stocked and deliver packages to online shoppers.

Amazon has roughly 290 million square feet of warehouse space across the country, according to CoStar Group. Walmart and Sam’s Club have roughly 143 million square feet, about 30% of which is used for e-commerce fulfillment. Third-party logistics (3PL) companies — most with names few Americans would recognize — have 800 million more square feet.

As companies buy up warehouse real estate, they also are hiring hundreds of thousands of workers. The number of warehouse and storage jobs have doubled since 2010, reaching 1.27 million this October, up from 629,000 in 2010.

Photo: Yuqing Liu/Business Insider

“Significant acceleration of warehouse worker hiring started in around late 2014, early 2015,” Arias said. “You can really just time that exactly when Amazon came out and started to say that they were going to do same-day delivery.”

In late March, the number of warehouse workers plummeted, as employers laid off workers in the face of an uncertain future.

But, companies were soon hiring once again, as it became clear that more manpower was needed during the e-commerce boom. Amazon announced in mid-March that it planned to hire 100,000 warehouse workers, boosting pay to win over potential employees. A few days later, Walmart said it would hire 150,000 people to work in stores, distribution centers, and fulfillment centers. By October, warehouse and storage workers had become a rare type of job that had not only recovered but beat pre-pandemic employment numbers.

Photo: Yuqing Liu/Business Insider

Working in warehouses comes with risks, even before the pandemic. Warehouse workers are injured at a significantly higher rate than employees in other industries, whether by being struck by stacked boxes, forklift turnovers, or repetitive motion injuries. Twenty-eight warehouse workers died on the job in 2018, the most recent year the Bureau of Labor Statistics has recorded data on industry deaths.

Now, some workers say the pandemic has made a sometimes risky situation even more toxic.

Warehouse workers face COVID risks and no clear answers

Workers worry about social distancing in 2020. Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Monica Moody said she realized her job at an Amazon fulfillment center in Charlotte, North Carolina was unsafe soon after she started in October 2019. Amazon’s “time off task” policies that track workers’ speed and can discourage them from taking breaks were a red flag, according to Moody.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, it became obvious pretty quickly that Amazon still put productivity ahead of worker safety,” Moody said on Monday, on a call with reporters coordinated by retail worker rights group United for Respect.

“They didn’t make any adjustments in our rates to account for the extra time that we should be taken to protect ourselves from this virus,” added Moody, who no longer works at the fulfillment center. “We didn’t even have masks in our facility for quite a while.”

Amazon was fined $1,870 in California in October after workers filed a pair of complaints saying the company did not notify workers of a COVID case, failed to enforce physical distancing, and prevented them from taking handwashing breaks. The company said in early October that more than 1,900 out of its 1,372,000 front-line workers had contacted COVID, with at least 10 dying.

The Walmart distribution center worker said he fears catching COVID because of people not following mask rules, as well as a lack of social distancing in shoulder-to-shoulder meetings and crowded lunchtimes. Complicating matters is the lack of communication from management about coworkers who may have been exposed or sick, something Moody said she also encountered at Amazon.

“It’s like Russian roulette, when you’re trying to protect yourself and put food on the table,” Moody said of uncertainty around COVID exposure.

Earlier this year, the Walmart worker said he called the health department to ask if the company was required to alert workers or close the warehouse if someone caught COVID. He was told that these decisions were up to Walmart.

“No one seems to really care. No one knows who to go to, who to speak with, if anything will even be done,” the worker said. “That’s the most scary part — knowing that all of this is happening and nothing seems able to be done.”

‘We’re seeing a lot of COVID cases’

Tommy Carden, an organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice who works primarily with people in the crucial distribution hub of Will County, Illinois, said that issues such as lack of sanitizing, hazard pay, and communication around positive cases have been central problems during the pandemic.

“We’re seeing a lot of COVID cases,” Carden said. “It’s a little tricky because a lot of the employers aren’t communicating to the workers when someone does have COVID. So, numbers aren’t always very clear. … There’s a lot of hush, hush around that.”

Employers have rolled out new precautions during the pandemic, such as distributing face masks to workers, announcing social distancing policies, and conducting temperature checks.

Amazon did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment. The company has previously said that having 19,816 workers catch COVID is 42% lower than its expected number. According to Amazon, it has “introduced or changed over 150 processes to ensure the health and safety of our teams,” including rolling out COVID testing and cleaning every 90 minutes.

Walmart declined to comment on any specific allegations, but pointed Business Insider to a April video showing safety precautions the company is taking in distribution centers. The video shows executive vice president of supply chain Greg Smith walking through a distribution center, highlighting features such as social distancing stickers, increased sanitizing supplies, and new online worker resources.

“It’s a great time to join the company,” Smith says. “Our volumes are heavy, and hiring helps us reinforce and support our associates, and support our business — making sure we get products to our customers, to be able to get products on the shelf.”

But, some workers say that enforcement of these new rules is uneven and has failed to stop the spread of the virus.

Photo: Yuqing Liu/Business Insider

Data backs their concerns. In Illinois, the category of factories and manufacturers (which include warehouses) is the largest site of COVID clusters, with the exception of long-term care facilities. Making up 12.8% of outbreaks, these factories, warehouses, and other manufacturing sites account for more cases than restaurants, bars, or colleges.

Holiday shopping season is bringing new problems

Booming e-commerce sales, skyrocketing warehouse employment, and COVID anxiety are the backdrop for an unprecedented holiday shopping season. Adobe Analytics predicts US online holiday sales will reach $189 billion in 2020, up 33% from the prior year.

“Traditionally, retailers hired their holiday help for their store,” Logistics TI founder Cathy Roberson told Business Insider. “However, within the past couple of years, there’s been a shift.”

This shift to warehouse hiring has been exacerbated by the pandemic, as companies investing in the crucial last-mile delivery go on hiring sprees. Transportation and warehousing industries added 108,200 jobs in October, a whopping 198% more than in October 2019, according to recruiting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Data analyzing 14,000 injuries in Amazon’s distribution centers from 2016 to 2019 revealed that injuries typically spike around the holidays and Prime Day, Center of Investigative Journalism outlet Reveal reports. Some warehouse employees worry that more work and hires could also increase the chances of catching COVID during peak season, just as the virus surges across the US.

“When there are already concerns about social distancing, already concerns about sanitation — more workers in a facility does mean more risk,” Carden said.

Carden said it is often easier for unsafe practices to go overlooked in warehouses because, unlike a store, most customers do not see what is actually happening. In a year when many retailers are closing on Thanksgiving, with Walmart encouraging workers to spend time with loved ones, it is a particularly stark division.

“For a lot of people, warehouse workers are sort of like an invisible part of the supply chain,” Carden said. “They’re not the one behind the cash register. They’re not the ones you see in the stores. But they’re the ones that make it all possible.”

Companies need warehouse workers to guarantee the delivery of holiday packages amid the e-commerce boom. But, hiring more could make warehouse workers’ jobs riskier — and, if that risk escalates into an outbreak, send the entire system crashing down.

“It’s going to keep popping up and it will impact the supply chain,” Roberson said of COVID outbreaks. “The biggest impact you’ll see is going to be in those warehouses.”

If companies are not careful, Roberson said, “there won’t be anybody to pick and pack those items.”

From warehouse workers to retail giants to industry experts, the holiday shopping season remains full of unknowns.

So far, massive companies’ e-commerce bets have paid off, with retailers and their CEOs making billions of dollars in recent months. Workers, however, are facing a holiday season in which hazard pay has dried up, but COVID cases are once again on the rise.

“Walmart being Walmart, you’d hope that they will take a lead, take a stance, come to bat for the very people who are making them these billions,” the Walmart distribution center worker said.

If you’re a worker with a story to share, email ktaylor@businessinsider.com.

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