An internal metric called “regretted” attrition has shown that the number of Amazon employees leaving the company has doubled in recent years.
The metric reached an average of 12.1% since June 2021 accounting for more than double the average in recent years.
Regretted attrition is the proportion of employees that Amazon did not want to see leave, typically through voluntary departures.
The reason for the exodus of these Amazon employees is due to several factors, including rising inflation, wage inflation, and competition for talent, which makes it easier for the company’s most valuable employees to find better opportunities elsewhere.
Amazon employees accused the company of relatively low pay, stagnant stock prices and a grueling work culture.
Amazon has tried to address the problem by introducing new initiatives, including raising the minimum wage for corporate employees earlier this year. It is also working to spend a record amount on employee stock grants, but Amazon employees describe the initiatives as disappointing.
Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner team, which manages the company’s third-party delivery contractors, recorded a 55% total attrition rate in 2021. Amazon’s drone delivery team, called Prime Air, also experienced an unprecedented level of employee departures.
Amazon Web Services cloud unit and its consumer retail division suffered talent losses. A team within AWS saw 35% of its engineers go, while a consumer retail business group lost 30% of its engineers.