Amazon's growing use of robots is changing how its warehouses operate, raising questions about the future of human labour, workplace safety and the skills employees will need as automation advances.
The company has more than one million robots working across its fulfilment network, while its 2025 annual report puts its global workforce at approximately 1.58 million full-time and part-time employees. The two figures illustrate the scale of the operation, but they do not establish how many jobs automation has replaced or will eliminate.
The debate extends beyond whether machines can take over repetitive tasks. Researchers are examining whether working alongside robots can reduce physically demanding duties while introducing different pressures, including faster production targets and repetitive movements.
Amazon says its technology helps employees by handling difficult tasks and improving safety, while critics have raised concerns about the conditions facing workers who remain on the warehouse floor.
Research published in 2025 offers evidence of both potential benefits and risks, making the relationship between automation and working conditions more complicated than a simple contest between people and machines.
Amazon Warehouse Robots Raise Questions About Jobs and Worker Safety
Amazon's robotics programme has developed considerably since the company acquired Kiva Systems in 2012. Its machines now include mobile units that transport shelves, robotic arms that sort parcels and systems designed to move inventory through fulfilment centres.
The company says robots assist with 75% of customer orders delivered worldwide, demonstrating how extensively the technology is integrated into its logistics operations.
Brad Greenwood, a business professor at George Mason University, told Ars Technica that collaborative robots change the relationship between machinery and employees because they operate close to workers and can influence the pace of their tasks.
Unlike traditional automation, which often operates separately from human workers, these systems can affect the speed at which employees are expected to work.
The employment implications became more concrete in October 2025, when The New York Times reported that internal Amazon documents outlined projections that automation could help the company avoid hiring more than 160,000 additional US workers by 2027, with the figure potentially exceeding 600,000 by 2033.
Amazon said the documents reflected the views of one team rather than its overall hiring strategy. The projections concerned jobs the company might otherwise have added, not confirmed plans to dismiss the same number of existing employees.
Amazon Robotics Research Reveals a Mixed Picture on Workplace Injuries
A study published in ILR Review in 2025, co-authored by Greenwood and researchers Gordon Burtch and Kiron Ravindran, examined injury patterns at Amazon warehouses. The researchers found that robotic fulfilment centres were associated with a 40% reduction in severe injuries but a 77% increase in less severe injuries compared with traditional facilities.
The researchers found evidence that a faster pace of work partly explained the increase in less severe injuries. Reduced task variety may also help explain why some risks persist. However, the study drew on historical warehouse data, so its results should not automatically be treated as a measurement of every facility operating today.
Joan Moriarty, director of strategic research at the Strategic Organizing Center, offered a critical assessment when speaking to Ars Technica. She argued that Amazon's public focus on its latest robots diverted attention from warehouse injuries, criticising what she described as the company's emphasis on speed and cost reduction.
Her remarks reflect the labour coalition's position rather than an independent finding about Amazon's motives.
In May 2025, the Strategic Organizing Center reported that Amazon's US warehouse injury rate in 2024 was 66% higher than that of non-Amazon warehouses, while its rate of serious injuries was nearly double.
These figures came from the coalition's analysis of data submitted to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The exact comparison behind the 66% figure should be checked against the original report before publication.
Amazon disputes criticism of its safety record. In its 2025 safety update, the company reported a 43% reduction in its global recordable incident rate and a 70% reduction in its lost-time incident rate since 2019. These company-wide figures do not, by themselves, establish whether robotic sites are safer than non-robotic ones.
Amazon also says automation creates technical opportunities, including roles in robotics maintenance, engineering and reliability. Whether those opportunities can offset changes to other types of warehouse work remains an open question.
Assessing the effects of automation requires examining hiring plans, employment outcomes and injury patterns separately, rather than assuming that a larger robot fleet necessarily means fewer workers or safer workplaces.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How are robots changing Amazon's warehouse operations?Robots are taking over repetitive tasks, potentially reducing physically demanding duties but also introducing new pressures like faster production targets.
- What are the potential benefits of using robots in warehouses?Robots can handle difficult tasks and improve safety, potentially reducing severe injuries.
- What concerns exist regarding the use of robots in Amazon warehouses?Concerns include the impact on human labor, workplace safety, and the potential for increased less severe injuries.
- What are the employment implications of automation at Amazon?Automation could help Amazon avoid hiring additional workers, but it raises questions about job displacement and the creation of new roles in robotics maintenance and engineering.
