Leaked internal documents suggest Amazon plans to avoid hiring roughly 600,000 U.S. workers by 2033 by rolling out robots and AI at massive scale.
That headline ricocheted across TV and social media in hours.
On FOX 32 Chicago, anchor Tia Ewing walked through the core claim and pressed her guest, Darren Kimura of AI Squared, on what it actually means.
Kimura’s first clarification mattered: this is not a mass firing of current employees, but “jobs that will not need to be hired in the future” as automation expands while sales are expected to double over the next decade.
On The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian delivered a blunt translation for workers: those are still jobs gone.
They framed Amazon as the bellwether for a broader “tidal wave,” warning that what hits warehouses and logistics will cascade into other sectors.
My take: whether you call it “not hiring” or “replacing,” the labor market feels the same punch.
What The Documents Point To
The Young Turks summarized several striking details. According to their segment, Amazon’s automation team believes the company can avoid hiring ~160,000 people in the U.S. by 2027, saving about $0.30 per item picked, packed, and delivered.
Uygur argued that a publicly traded company cannot ignore a per-unit savings like that.
In his view, fiduciary pressure makes the rollout inevitable, at Amazon and across competitors like Walmart and UPS.
Kasparian highlighted language choices in the leaked materials. Instead of “automation” or “AI,” she said the documents prefer “advanced technology” and even “cobots” to imply human collaboration.
Her point was simple. Changing the word doesn’t change the outcome.
Is This A Jobs Apocalypse – or A Shift?
Kimura urged viewers to look past the headline and into the mechanics. He noted Amazon already runs over a million robots and will introduce many more, but each wave arrives through pilots, tuning, and slow scaling.
That pace creates human work, he said. Everything from observing, recording, and fine-tuning to setting guardrails and supervising agentic systems requires people.
He also stressed that displacement is seldom one-for-one.
When companies automate, new jobs often emerge around the tech—repairing, programming, optimizing, and integrating robots and AI workflows.
FOX 32’s Ewing pressed on where workers actually start.
Kimura laid out an on-ramp that didn’t sound elitist: free intro courses, YouTube tutorials, and community college classes; company apprenticeships; and stackable certificates.
He even quoted rough pay bands he’s seen. Robot mechanics in the $35–$75/hour range; contract software programmers at $300/hour for specialized work.
My read: that’s real money, but it requires a plan, a timeline, and local training capacity—not just a pep talk.
The TYT Alarm: A Tidal Wave With No Lifeboats
Uygur called the coming wave an “AI Nakba” – a catastrophe if policymakers do nothing. He argued that middle management, call centers, legal assistants, and paralegals will be hit alongside warehouse and delivery jobs.
Kasparian added that Amazon’s stated ambition is to automate 75% of operations, and she blasted euphemisms meant to soften the blow. She questioned whether the broader economy can absorb millions of displaced workers fast enough to prevent a consumption crash: who buys the goods if paychecks vanish?
Their critique extended to government. In TYT’s telling, Washington has been more eager to wave regulation through than to prepare guardrails or transition policies.
You don’t have to agree with the language to feel the urgency.
If labor demand shrinks faster than retraining and new-job creation grow, the math gets ugly.
What Changes For Workers – Right Now
Kimura’s advice on FOX 32 was pragmatic. Treat this as a skills moment, not a spectator sport.
He suggested three immediate moves. First, get literate in AI and robotics basics – how systems work, where they break, and how they’re monitored.
Second, target adjacent roles that sit next to automation: line supervisors for AI systems, safety and ethics oversight, maintenance and calibration, and operations analysts who tune workflows.
These roles depend on human judgment and are expanding as deployments scale.
Third, pursue stackable credentials that compound: basic Python, industrial safety, PLC fundamentals, intro robotics, then specialized modules in vision systems, agentic orchestration, or predictive maintenance.
It’s not a four-year detour; it’s a staircase.
Ewing’s segment made another quiet but crucial point. Factories and fulfillment centers are everywhere, not just Silicon Valley, so training needs to be near the jobs.
That is both a challenge and an opportunity for community colleges and regional workforce boards.
Will This Collapse The Job Market?
The TYT case: yes, if nothing changes. Uygur argued that maximizing per-unit savings across a Fortune 100 playbook inevitably strips out headcount faster than the economy can replace it.
Kimura’s case: it depends on execution and uptake. Deployments roll out in steps, and every step creates human work around design, safety, compliance, and optimization.
Here’s my synthesis. Both stories can be true – short-term disruption, long-term reshaping – but the path matters.
If companies automate without building on-ramps for their own employees, disruption wins. If federal and state leaders refuse to fund rapid reskilling where the robots actually land, disruption wins.
But if employers commit to apprenticeships, and if public programs co-fund credential sprints that slot into specific warehouse, logistics, and manufacturing roles, reshaping can outrun collapse. It’s not guaranteed. It’s a choice.
Four Practical Moves That Beat Panic
Target the “human-in-the-loop” layer. As Kimura told FOX 32, agentic AI and physical robots still need people to supervise, audit, and recover when things drift.
Build regional training hubs inside facilities. Put classrooms and labs on site at large fulfillment centers and ports. Reduce friction; increase completion.
Tie incentives to retained workers. Offer tax credits for companies that retrain incumbents into automation-adjacent jobs, not just for buying robots.
Measure the 30-cent trade-off honestly. As TYT emphasized, per-item savings are real. So should be the cost of lost consumer demand if earnings fall. Model both – publicly.
On FOX 32 Chicago, Tia Ewing pressed for clarity, and Darren Kimura gave it: the “600,000” figure is primarily foregone future hires as Amazon deploys more robots and AI while sales grow.
He argued that waves of automation create new work – from maintenance to supervision—and urged upskilling through accessible pathways.
On The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian called the same trend a looming job-market collapse.
They cited per-item savings, euphemistic language in the documents, and an ambition to automate 75% of operations – and warned that absent policy, the wave will swamp workers and demand.
Both lenses capture part of the truth. The leak tells us the scale; the debate tells us the stakes.
If the country treats this as an engineering problem, we’ll focus on robots. If we treat it as a societal problem, we’ll focus on people next to robots – and fund the bridges that make the future livable.
The documents are a forecast, not a fate. Whether we get a stronger economy – or a hole in the hull – depends on what we build between now and 2033.
UP NEXT: “Heavily Armed” — See Which States Are The Most Strapped
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Gary’s love for adventure and preparedness stems from his background as a former Army medic. Having served in remote locations around the world, he knows the importance of being ready for any situation, whether in the wilderness or urban environments. Gary’s practical medical expertise blends with his passion for outdoor survival, making him an expert in both emergency medical care and rugged, off-the-grid living. He writes to equip readers with the skills needed to stay safe and resilient in any scenario.
