That's a complex question. I get two conflicting perspectives on their jobs: one from corporate, and one from the internet.
Corporate wants to believe that we're trying to do right by them, by making their jobs easier where we can, and by being a decent company to work for. We supposedly pay a bit above average (certainly better than minimum wage), with benefits, and provide some other perks, at least for the full time associates. A lot of effort goes into making their jobs easier and more reliable. It's understood that these are, as I said, not fantastic jobs and most of them won't stay long term, and that's ok. Some move up into management.
The internet tells me that we drive people like mad, that management is brutal and unforgiving, that there's no such thing as full time associates, and even if there were, you'll never become one. I have seen some utterly grueling jobs in person. (The one I have in mind I believe has very short shift times and I think was meant to be automated this year.)
There is some variance where and when we employ FTEs and PTEs, and I think that's a lot of the difference. And the hard truth is that when we bring on more work for Q4, it's seasonal, and most of them will simply not be needed afterwards.
The internal tone could colorfully be described as a controlled panic, that we must scale our operations, faster every year, because Amazon is not slowing down, and we have to keep up. I don't doubt that this manifests itself as a scary downward pressure on the floor, especially during peak. It is understood that manpower alone is failing us and we will shortly be simply unable to hire enough people to meet demand. That we can barely do this now. Automation is crucial.
I suppose my view is: they work incredibly hard and we try to do right by them, and probably don't do enough. We occasionally make the news for the latest horror story, but I find it hard to believe it would ever be intentional. And I have serious doubts about our part time associates.
I can elaborate if you had a particular question in mind.
