Amazon’s two-day delivery helped catapult the online store to widespread popularity, and in some areas, deliveries can happen in mere hours. The company says deliveries in 2024 are speeding up, but the reasons for that speedup aren’t all positive.
Amazon attributed the faster delivery speeds to its “regionalizing” efforts, where the company stores inventory in many smaller regional warehouses ahead of orders from buyers. Amazonsaid in 2023that it divided the United States into “eight interconnected reigons,” and 76% of orders could be fulfilled from those regional facilities without cross-country shipping. That includes “Same-Day facilities,” which are smaller buildings placed in large metro areas with a more limited number of products.
There’s a problem with the faster deliveries, though: they are made possible (at least in part) by Amazon’s numerous and ongoing safety violations. The U.S. Department of Laborissued citationsto Amazon for failing to keep workers safe at warehouses in Colorado, Idaho, and New York in February 2023, after previously finding issues at facilities in Florida, Illinois, and New York. The agency said Amazon workers experienced “high rates of musculoskeletal disorders,” based on injury logs required by federal law, and people often worked longer hours and lifted heavier items than they should. The third-party delivery workers contracted by Amazon alsohave an abnormally high injury rate on the job.
Amazon’s safety and labor violations have been an ongoing issue for years. In 2021, at leastsix people died at an Amazon facility in Illinoisafter a tornado struck the building. Amazon has an official policy to move workers to a shelter during dangerous weather, but the company declined to answer specific questions about when workers were warned for that storm. Many Amazon workers havespoken outabout delivery times being prioritized over safety, and some facilities havesuccessfully unionizedto push for improved working conditions.
Amazon might be excited to share how its deliveries are speeding up, but that’s happening in part because the workers are pushed harder and faster at the expense of safety. The next time you order something, considerusing an Amazon Day delivery instead of Prime shipping, or just shop at other retail stores.
