Amazon to invest $700 million in retraining its workforce

Few companies have a keener understanding of how technology is transforming work than Amazon, the online retail giant whose discount deals and rapid delivery have spelled the demise of shopping malls all over the world.

It’s fitting that Amazon is bracing for future technological change by spending $700 million over the next six years to retrain about 100,000 U.S. employees, or roughly a third of its domestic workforce. That amounts to $7,000 per retrained employee.

The company tells the Wall Street Journal the training will be free for employees and entirely voluntary. It said it will help workers develop skills that will open up more advanced employment to them in or outside of the company.

Related: Prepare for a skills shift: What employers need to do to adapt their workforce

Training opportunities will vary, from programs teaching low-level warehouse workers how to operate more complicated machinery to ones that teach computer programming to office employees in nontechnical roles.

Although Amazon has been at the forefront of technology that has displaced traditional jobs, it has also rapidly expanded its workforce in recent years. It has nearly doubled its workforce since the end of 2016, when it reported 344,000 employees, although roughly 80,000 of the new workers came over from Whole Foods when Amazon acquired that company.

With the retraining effort, Amazon has the chance to show the world that automation will not render much of humanity unemployable. Instead, say optimists, new technology will not eliminate human labor, but simply change it.

Ironically, the other factor likely influencing the company’s decision is the fact that unemployment now is so low. In such a tight labor market, employers are struggling to find and retain talent. Amazon’s decision to raise its minimum wage to $15 last year was another indication that it was under pressure to attract workers.

Read more: 

• Reskilling and upskilling becoming bigger talent-management priorities
• Employee skills gap threatens America’s economic growth
• Employers will need to hire for digital skills talent to survive