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Amazon’s Price To Retool Staff Is $700 Million.
亞馬遜將斥資7億美元 對員工進行再培訓
By Ben Casselman and Adam Satariano
文/本·卡塞曼和亞當·薩塔里亞諾
As automation technology has leapt ahead,
隨著自動化技術飛躍發(fā)展，
workers increasingly worry about losing their jobs to robots and algorithms.
工人們越來越擔心自己的飯碗會被機器人和算法搶走。
Economists dismiss those concerns, by and large,
經濟學家對這些擔憂大多不屑一顧，
arguing that workers can grab higher-skilled jobs with better wages.
認為工人們能夠找到技術含量更高，薪酬也會更高的工作。
Amazon may soon find out who is right.
究竟誰對誰錯，也許，亞馬遜很快就會找到答案。
The e-commerce giant said Thursday that it planned to spend $700 million
這家電商巨頭周四表示，他們計劃斥資7億美元，
to retrain about a third of its American workers to do more high-tech tasks,
對亞馬遜大約三分之一的美國員工進行再培訓，讓他們能夠在未來從事技術含量更高的工作，
an acknowledgment that advances in technology are remaking jobs in nearly every industry —
這一舉措無異于承認技術進步正在改變各行各業(yè)的工作崗位——
and that workers will need to adapt or risk being left behind.
進而就等于承認工人們必須適應這種變化，否則就可能被淘汰。
Amazon said the program amounted to one of the world’s largest employee-retraining efforts.
亞馬遜表示，該項目是全球規(guī)模最大的員工再培訓項目之一。
It will apply across the company, from corporate employees to warehouse workers, retraining about 100,000 by 2025.
該項目計劃到2025年，整個公司，從企業(yè)員工到倉庫工人，再培訓員工的數(shù)目要達到10萬人。
Amazon has about 300,000 employees in the United States.
而亞馬遜在美國的員工總數(shù)在30萬左右。
The investment is a large-scale experiment
亞馬遜的此次投資堪稱針對公司能否通過重組現(xiàn)有勞動力
in whether companies can remake their existing work forces to fit a fast-changing technological world.
適應技術快速變革的當今世界這一問題所作的一項大規(guī)模試驗。
While government programs have tried to turn factory workers and coal miners into computer coders and data scientists,
此前政府也推出過類似項目，意圖把工廠工人和煤礦工人變成程序員和數(shù)據(jù)科學家，
few of those efforts have succeeded.
但鮮有成功者。
Corporate attempts have been limited.
企業(yè)界在這方面的嘗試也十分有限。
But with unemployment low and workers scarce,
但由于失業(yè)率低，加上工人稀缺，
companies like Amazon feel pressure to look internally to fill their labor needs.
企業(yè)如亞馬遜之流已經感覺到，要滿足自己的勞動力需求，就要將目光轉向企業(yè)內部。
Their efforts could help answer a more fundamental question:
他們的這一嘗試或許能夠幫助我們回答一個更基本的問題：
Will automation be a solution for the great challenges of the 21st-century economy —
自動化是會解決低工資、貧富差距日益擴大和整體增長乏力等
low wages, rising inequality and anemic overall growth — or make those problems worse?
21世紀經濟面臨的巨大挑戰(zhàn)，還是會讓這些問題進一步惡化？
Susan Lund, an economist at the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, said
麥肯錫咨詢公司的研究部門——麥肯錫全球研究所的經濟學家蘇珊·隆德評論道：
"The scale and pace of the changes in the work force are unprecedented.
“勞動力市場的變化，無論是規(guī)模還是速度，都是前所未有的.
“And they can’t hire off the street everyone they need. They have no choice but to retrain their own workers."
他們沒有辦法在街頭雇來所有他們需要的員工，沒辦法，他們只能對自己的員工進行再培訓?！?/div>
Amazon already faces fierce criticism from politicians on the right and left,
亞馬遜已經陷入了左右兩派政客，包括特朗普總統(tǒng)
including President Trump and Democratic presidential candidates like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
和馬薩諸塞州參議員伊麗莎白·沃倫等民主黨總統(tǒng)候選人的激烈批評聲中。
They have held up the company as a symbol of tech industry excess,
在他們眼中，亞馬遜就是科技行業(yè)過剩的象征，
saying Amazon avoids paying taxes, devalues workers and squashes smaller businesses.
聲稱亞馬遜存在逃稅，貶低員工，打壓小企業(yè)多種問題。
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