Severe staffing shortages and the mounting costs of keeping its logistics empire running at full speed will throttle Amazon’s earnings for the remainder of the year, the company warned on Thursday.
The ecommerce giant said that “inconsistent staffing levels” within its fulfilment network had led to inventory being inefficiently routed to regions with a more reliable workforce, increasing costs as it heads into the crunch holiday period.
“Labour became our primary capacity constraint in Q3 — not storage space, or fulfilment capacity, which is normally the case,” Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer, said during an earnings call on Thursday.
The need to move goods to areas with better staffing was leading to persistent issues with “less optimal placement, which leads to longer and more expensive transportation routes”, he added.
With intense competition for workers across the US, Olsavsky said Amazon had received “more than our share” of available labour. But it has come at a heavy price: an additional $2bn in operating costs in the third quarter.