Amazon plans to avoid hiring 600,000 workers through automation by 2033

Leaked Documents Reveal Automation Strategy

Amazon is building an army of robots, and the leaked playbook shows exactly who gets left behind.

Internal documents obtained by The New York Times in October 2025 reveal the company’s plan to avoid hiring over 600,000 U.S. warehouse workers over the next decade through automation.

The strategy would save billions while doubling sales. But the numbers tell only part of the story, and what comes next could reshape the American labor market.

160,000 Jobs Gone by 2027

Amazon’s robotics team expects the company to avoid hiring more than 160,000 U.S. workers it would otherwise need by 2027.

The automation would save roughly 30 cents on every item the company picks, packs, and ships. That adds up to projected savings of $12.6 billion between 2025 and 2027.

By 2033, when Amazon expects to sell twice as many products as it does today, that number jumps to over 600,000 positions the company simply won’t fill.

The 75 Percent Target

Internal strategy documents show Amazon’s robotics division has set an ambitious goal: automate 75 percent of all warehouse operations. That means robots handling most of the picking, packing, sorting, and moving that human workers do today.

The company already has the technology in place at its most advanced facilities. Now it’s scaling up.

Executives presented these projections directly to Amazon’s board, framing automation as the path to growth without the headcount.

Shreveport Shows the Future

Amazon’s fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana, opened in late 2024 as a blueprint for what’s coming. The facility spans five floors and more than 2.5 million square feet, making it one of the company’s largest.

About 1,000 robots work alongside humans, and the site already employs 25 percent fewer workers than a traditional warehouse.

As more robots come online, that figure is expected to hit 50 percent.

One Million Robots and Counting

On July 1, 2025, Amazon deployed its one millionth robot, delivered to a fulfillment center in Japan.

The company now operates the world’s largest fleet of industrial mobile robots, spread across more than 300 facilities globally. That robot workforce is getting close to matching Amazon’s 1.56-1.58 million human employees worldwide. And unlike humans, robots don’t need breaks, don’t get injured, and don’t ask for raises.

Labor advocates have raised concerns about how automation may affect worker organizing efforts.

A Robot for Every Task

Amazon has built an entire ecosystem of specialized machines.

Hercules moves shelving units weighing up to 1,250 pounds.

Proteus navigates warehouse floors autonomously alongside human workers.

Sparrow uses suction cups and computer vision to pick individual items from bins.

Cardinal sorts and stacks packages.

Robin transfers items between systems.

An AI system called DeepFleet coordinates the entire fleet, reducing travel time by 10%.

They Want You to Say Cobot

The leaked documents reveal something else: Amazon knows how bad this looks. Internal memos show the company debated avoiding terms like “robot,” “automation,” and “AI” when discussing its plans.

The preferred alternatives included “advanced technology” and “cobot,” a word meant to suggest collaboration between humans and machines.

Amazon also considered participating in community events like parades and toy drives to soften its image in areas where jobs might disappear.

Virginia Beach Is Next

Amazon is already building the next wave of robot warehouses.

A massive fulfillment center in Virginia Beach opened in fall 2025, and a new 3.1-million-square-foot facility in Goochland County, Virginia, is expected to be fully operational by 2027. The company has invested over $135 billion in Virginia since 2010.

Each new facility follows the Shreveport model: more robots, fewer humans, faster deliveries. The expansion shows no signs of slowing down.

Black Workers Hit Hardest

According to data from 2019 and 2020, more than 60 percent of workers hired into Amazon’s lowest-paying hourly roles between 2018 and 2020 were Black or Hispanic. Amazon’s own demographic data shows that in 2020, nearly 63 percent of its warehouse and call center workers were Black, Latino, Native American, or multiracial. These are the same positions most vulnerable to automation.

When robots replace pickers, packers, and sorters, the impact won’t be evenly distributed. Labor advocates have long warned that Amazon’s operations disproportionately affect communities of color.

A Nobel Laureate Sounds the Alarm

Daron Acemoglu, an MIT professor who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024 for his studies on how institutions affect prosperity, told The New York Times that Amazon’s automation push could have ripple effects across the entire economy. Once the company figures out how to automate profitably, competitors will follow. Walmart, UPS, and other major employers will face pressure to match Amazon’s efficiency.

Acemoglu warned that if Amazon succeeds, “one of the biggest employers in the United States will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator.”

Amazon Pushes Back

Amazon says the leaked documents don’t tell the whole story.

A company spokesperson called the materials incomplete and misleading, claiming they reflect the views of just one team. Amazon pointed to its hiring of 250,000 seasonal workers for the 2025 holiday season as evidence that it still needs humans. The company also denied that executives were told to avoid certain words when discussing robots.

Amazon did not dispute the authenticity of the documents or the projections they contained.

The Biggest Employer Bet in America

Amazon employs about 1.56-1.58 million people worldwide, including approximately 1.1 million in the United States—making it the second-largest private employer in the country, behind Walmart.

For years, the company hired aggressively to keep up with demand. Now the strategy has shifted. Executives face pressure to do more with less, and robots offer a path to growth without the payroll.

The question isn’t whether automation is coming. It’s whether the millions of workers who built Amazon’s empire will have anywhere to go when the robots take over.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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