Amazon will hire 100,000 people with minimum wage 1:35
(CNN Business) -
Amazon said Thursday that 19,816 of its front-line U.S. employees at both Amazon and Whole Foods have tested positive or were presumed positive for coronavirus.
With this figure, the company sheds light for the first time on how its workforce has been affected by covid-19.
Amazon had repeatedly resisted sharing comprehensive data with the public and with its own workers on the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in its warehouses.
These warehouses, precisely, have become crucial centers for household supplies during the pandemic.
Despite numerous confirmed cases in Amazon warehouses across the country and around the world, the e-commerce giant has downplayed the release of data from sites or aggregates.
This has made it difficult to get a clear picture of infections in your facility.
In a blog post, the company said it did a "thorough analysis of the data of the 1,372,000 front-line Amazon and Whole Foods Market employees in the United States (who were) employed at any time from March 1 to March 19. September 2020 ».
Amazon said it then compared its case rates to those of the general population during the same period, using reports from Johns Hopkins University.
The company said the number of employees who tested positive, or were presumed positive, was 42% lower than expected based on that comparison.
Amazon under scrutiny
CNN Business requested a greater breakdown of the cases between workers at Whole Foods and Amazon.
The goal was to understand how those rates compare to the general population.
Amazon declined to provide it.
Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of global operations, had previously said that the total number of cases "is not particularly helpful because it is relative to the size of the building and then the overall infection rate in the community" in an interview with 60 Minutes. on CBS that aired in May.
The company appears to be taking a different position on this now.
Warehouse security has become an area under intense scrutiny.
Amazon's business has grown even as the broader economy has been engulfed in a pandemic-induced recession.
CEO Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, has seen his personal fortune rise by tens of billions of dollars this year.
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In a letter sent to Bezos and Amazon-owned Whole Foods CEO John Mackey in May, more than a dozen attorneys general asked companies to release a state-by-state breakdown of confirmed COVID-19 cases. 19 at your facilities.
This was part of broader demands regarding the health and safety of workers.
At least 10 deaths
To fill the information gap, workers and advocacy groups have rushed to collect the number of cases themselves.
Its objective is to monitor the spread of the virus in Amazon facilities.
There have been at least 10 deaths among Amazon warehouse employees who tested positive for coronavirus.
Workers at various Amazon and Whole Foods facilities have been involved in strikes over workplace conditions.
LOOK: Some workers trust Amazon's prevention measures during the pandemic but not all
Amazon has said it has taken a variety of steps to prevent the spread of the virus, including making more than 150 "process changes" to its operations to improve security.
Prime Day is coming
Amazon Prime Day already has a date 1:14
The data on coronavirus infections comes as Amazon prepares for its annual sales event, Prime Day, which will take place on October 13-14.
This event marks a busy period for workers handling delivery and fulfillment.
The company announced plans to hire an additional 100,000 employees in its network of operations last month.
Since March, Amazon has hired 100,000 new workers in a matter of weeks to meet growing customer demand and announced plans to hire another 75,000 in April.
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