Amazon's worker-education program: A 'sweatshop' cover-up?

The company launches a generous program to help new employees pick up high-demand skills, but some doubt that Amazon is doing it out of the goodness of its heart

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

This week, visitors to Amazon's homepage were greeted with an open letter from CEO Jeff Bezos seeking employees for the company's storage and distribution warehouses. The main draw is a new education initiative called the Amazon Career Choice Program, which will pay up to $8,000 over four years to equip employees with "high demand" skills in engineering, information technology, or nursing. Bezos also touted improved safety conditions at Amazon's warehouses, which have been criticized as "sweatshops" after reports that employees at one warehouse were working in 100-plus-degree temperatures and needed medical care. So, while some praised Bezos' education drive, others saw a huge public relations stunt. Is the worker-education program a sweatshop cover-up?

No. Amazon's program is a game-changer: "Amazon is setting the bar for" corporate-sponsored education programs, says Gery Menegaz at ZDNet, ramping up its efforts while other companies are cutting back in this area. Amazon prides itself on being a pioneering force, and this program distinguishes itself "by not mandating that the education be relevant to the employee's current position...." With so much anxiety over America's failure to compete with other countries in the race for highly skilled workers, "here is an innovation that could help to catch us up."

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