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Amazon Is Quietly Replacing Workers With Robots. But There's More to the Story

Originally posted on Men's Journal | By Kristyn Burtt | Last updated Jul 2, 2025 5:11 PM ET

Technology is catching up to the U.S. workforce very quickly and one company is leading the way with robotics — which isn't exactly good news on the jobs front.

The Wall Street Journal did a deep dive into Amazon's quest to automate tasks that have been done by its employees for decades. According to the report, there are "more than one million robots" working in its facilities and it's now "near the count of human workers." The project is so sophisticated that the robots "can work in tandem with each other and with humans."

With the introduction of the machines into the workplace, Amazon has dramatically slowed its hiring of human workers. The shift is noted in the company's newer warehouses where "smaller employee footprints and help us deliver with greater speed,” per a company spokesperson to the media outlet.

David Wang, robotic software engineer at Amazon, works on a robot prior to a demonstration. Amazon offered a media tour and gave demonstrations of its robots, electric delivery vans, and drones. Boston Globe/Getty Images

Amazon touts the benefits of this automation, pointing out that "products move 25% faster," and they can train "700,000 workers across the world for higher-paying jobs," per The Wall Street Journal.

Amazon’s chief technologist, Tye Brady, spoke with Fast Company in December 2024 and insisted that the narrative about human job loss to robots is all wrong.

"I don’t view it as eliminating jobs," Brady explained. "But I do see jobs changing. And it’s really important that we as a society pledge to upskill our employees. The age of generative AI is here. I want to eliminate the mundane, monotonous tasks, but I want to repurpose the people to do other things inside the building."

Amazon is investing $1.2 billion in skills training for "over 300,000 employees," including prepaid tuition and a robotics apprenticeship program.

"More robots, more jobs. We have the data that proves that. We’ve created hundreds of thousands of new jobs because of our productivity due to robotics," Brady continued. "They work together. When you reframe your relationship with people at the center of the robotics universe, what you’re doing is that you’re extending human capability. When you gain revenue, you invest in your robotics so that they can help people. When you do that, you’re actually creating new jobs."

This article first appeared on Men's Journal and was syndicated with permission.

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