Amazon Offers Workers $5,000 To stop

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the “Pay to Quit” program towards the company’s shareholders on Thursday.

Bezos said the new programs offers Amazon’s employees up to $5,000 to quit their jobs, with the goal being to make sure their employees really want to be there.

“The goal is to encourage folks to consider a moment and consider what they really want… In the long run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t desire to be isn’t healthy for that employee or the company,” Bezos said.

The offer is going to be sent to employees annually underneath the headline, “Please Don’t Take This Offer.”

Bezos said the idea came from Zappos, the internet footwear and clothing retailer which Amazon purchased in 2009. Zappos continues to operate as a separate unit in the main Amazon site.

Amazon is incorporated in the process of adding warehouses, known as “fulfillment centers” so that it can cut delivery times to customers. Today is has 96 such locations. Company filings show it had 117,300 full-time and part-time employees after last year, up by nearly another from its employment level last year.

Amazon traditionally has declined to say just how much its smart its warehouse workers, although it says it pay about 30% greater than a typical retail worker.

According to data gathered last year by career website Glassdoor.com, Amazon pays its warehouse workers an average hourly wage of approximately $12 an hour, which comes to simply about $25,000 for any full year. Its full-time workers also get stock grants which Amazon said last year had averaged about 9% of employees’ pay.