We want to hear from you. CNBC previously reported Amazon's goal is to test the bulk of its front-line workers every two weeks, with employees testing themselves with nasal swabs. In one year, FBA Donations provided 20 million items to support communities and help the planet, and now the program launches in France. Amazon employee Christian Smalls participates in a walkout over COVID-19 working conditions at the company's Staten Island distribution facility on March 30, 2020. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Amazon’s lack of transparency combined with the lack of federal protections for U.S. worker make it almost impossible to track the spread of Covid-19 at one of America’s largest employers. We believe Amazon has a unique role to play providing a critical service for families to get the items they need, without leaving their homes. As part of this, we are committing an initial investment of $20 million to accelerate diagnostic research, innovation, and development to speed our collective understanding and detection of COVID-19 and other innovate diagnostic solutions to mitigate future infectious disease outbreaks. Amazon also gave an update on its progress providing coronavirus testing to front-line workers. Amazon, which is … If Amazon's infection rates were in line with the community, the total number of cases would have reached 33,952, the company said. From the beginning of the pandemic, we have worked tirelessly to support and protect our employees, customers, and the communities where we operate during this time of crisis. Amazon says nearly 20,000 US employees have contracted COVID-19. Amazon employees delivering with purpose throughout COVID-19, holiday season. It's unclear how many contracted drivers make up Amazon's third-party delivery network, but the company previously said it has added nearly 85,000 jobs across the U.S., Canada, UK, Spain, and Germany. We’ve made over 150 process updates—from enhanced cleaning and social distancing measures to new efforts like aerosol disinfectant spraying. 1.44 percent of Amazon’s front-line employees, or 19,816 workers, have tested positive or been “presumed positive for COVID-19,” Amazon said in … We have dedicated over $1 million in initial investments to support response and recovery efforts in our supply chain. This additional pay while away from work is to ensure employees have the time they need to return to good health without the worry of lost income. We have urged suppliers to take the following steps to mitigate risk to workers: The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has impacted communities across the world, including in the cities home to our U.S. corporate headquarters in Seattle, WA and Arlington, VA. To support those communities during this health crisis, we have quickly ramped up our response efforts and unique programs. New section in our Sustainability report outlines our commitment to supporting our employees, partners in our supply chain, as well as work in communities around the world. To support those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. All front-line employees and partners who were with the company throughout the month of June will receive a bonus. Amazon tracks employees in real time to determine whether they perform a task in each minute and aggregates a ... Amazon conducts contact tracing for COVID-19 infections among its employees… The company said it has counted 19,816 confirmed or presumed Covid-19 cases across its front-line employees in the U.S., or 1.44% of its 1.37 million front-line Amazon and Whole Foods employees. Amazon is dropping some alarming stats and, in case you were wondering, life on the frontlines ain't easy for their employees ... nearly 20,000 of whom they believe caught COVID-19. Amazon released figures on Thursday that for the first time detail the spread of the coronavirus among its employees. Amazon employees pack orders at the company’s Kent fulfillment center last June. Through our Amazon Future Engineer program, we’re donating. Amazon said that of 1,372,000 employees who worked there or for Whole Foods between March 1st and September 19th, some 19,816 either tested positive or were presumed positive for COVID-19. AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative is a global program to support customers who are working to bring better, more accurate, diagnostics solutions to market faster and promote better collaboration across organizations that are working on similar problems. Note: Employee totals are … We introduced and scaled temperature checks across our worldwide facilities. According to employee screening documents provided to Amazon HR staff on March 20 and reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Amazon employees who are exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, including a fever or a sore throat, are asked to go home and use vacation pay if they have it— but if an employee reports that a family member has tested positive for COVID-19, “the associate does not … The company has not released a total number or an updated percentage. Amazon Flex delivery partners collect the pre-packaged foods from food banks, and make “no-contact” deliveries directly to the doorsteps of vulnerable groups in their own communities. To enable remote learning while schools are closed, we have made Amazon Future Engineer STEM curriculum available to students in the U.S., UK, and France, reaching more than 9,000 students in the U.S. during the first week alone. Yet as of October, more than 20,000 US-based Amazon employees had been infected by the coronavirus. This program, which we call “Distant Assistant,” provides immediate feedback to our employees on whether they are maintaining six-feet of physical distance from one another. A Division of NBCUniversal. All Rights Reserved. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis. The tech giant revealed that … The Helpline serves as a resource for 600+ factories, 30 of which are Amazon suppliers, reaching 1.5 million workers in Bangladesh, and supporting them in safely transitioning back into the workplace. Amazon’s Great Labor Awakening The Coronavirus Outbreak Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees, and we expect to invest approximately $4 billion on COVID-related initiatives getting products to customers and keeping employees safe. Jay Inslee to prioritize its workers for coronavirus vaccinations. Amazon's total does not include its network of third-party delivery drivers, which handle a portion of last-mile deliveries. Amazon helps vaccinate thousands in its hometown, Amazon underscores commitment to employees, supply chain partners, and communities, Every day, we donate 50,000 items to help people in need, Enabling Sustainability for Our Customers, Sign up for Out for Delivery, our newsletter. The company previously said it would invest its expected Q2 profit of $4 billion into its Covid-19 response and will spend $1 billion on testing throughout the year. Our contribution will help support the organization’s increased call volumes and the 24/7 factory grievance lines in regions impacted by COVID-19. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. About 50 workers walked out Monday, according to Chris Smalls, a worker at the warehouse who helped organize the action. Working with food banks in 25 cities across the country. Amazon released data Thursday showing that 19,816 employees have tested positive or been presumed positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Amazon said the rate of infection among employees was 42% lower than expected, compared with the "general population rate" in the U.S. See how we put our scale and inventive culture to work on building a sustainable future. Supporting Front-Line Employees and Partners. Amazon partnered with food banks across the country to donate delivery services of shelf-stable groceries and pre-packaged foods to serve 6 million meals, using our robust network of Amazon Flex drivers. Published 31 March ... "Several employees working at the site use face masks for days instead … The company has long maintained that the rate of infection in its warehouses is lower than what the rates are in surrounding communities, though that has been disputed by workers, specifically at an Amazon warehouse in Minnesota, where infection rates exceeded community levels. Amazon underscores commitment to employees, supply chain partners, and communities Another Amazon warehouse worker has died from COVID-19, bringing the total known deaths to eight employees, the company said Thursday. These services are available to seven factories in our supply chain, reaching 3,500 workers—including 1,400 women—and their families. Improving Workplace Safety with Artificial Intelligence. New pop-up clinic in Seattle is the latest in the company's multi-faceted pandemic response that has also included 1 million in-house COVID-19 tests for Amazon employees. Read updates on how we're responding to the crisis and learn more about how we're supporting our employees, customers, and communities. We are partnering with organizations providing critical support to suppliers and workers during this devastating pandemic. Amazon is supporting the implementation of SCORE Training in 42 factories, which is helping factories plan their production schedule, reorganize production lines, and implement guidelines for more social distance and increased safety. It has built its own lab to develop coronavirus testing capacity, with teams focused on these efforts in Sunnyvale, California, and Hebron, Kentucky. Given the harsh and widespread criticism over their treatment of Amazon employees during the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos must focus on employee engagement. Employees and state officials had been asking for this information months earlier. Amazon spent $4B on Covid-related costs in Q2, it would invest its expected Q2 profit of $4 billion. Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of retail operations, on Wednesday sent a … The toolkit covers topics like personal hygiene, reproductive health and breastfeeding, and financial planning, and offers local resources on mental health and domestic violence services. As part of this partnership, we have been able to distribute over 100 economic relief grants to artisan businesses across the globe. In India, we partnered with Swasti—a global nonprofit committed to ensuring access to quality healthcare for workers and those in marginalized communities—to adapt their worker well-being program (Invest4Wellness) to provide support to workers in factories impacted by COVID-19. Amazon has built a dedicated team of research scientists, program managers, procurement specialists and software engineers in order to quickly scale up its testing capabilities, it said. Amazon on Thursday released comprehensive data into the spread of the coronavirus across its workforce. Lacking data from Amazon, warehouse workers compiled a crowdsourced database of infections based on notifications of new cases at facilities across the U.S. Amazon previously declined to share the data, saying it would be misleading and lacked context. We have donated ventilators, masks, gloves, sanitizers, and other COVID-19 supplies to help the response effort. The Amazon employees were mistakenly told they had tested positive, whereas they had all tested negative for coronavirus. Amazon is committed to supporting our suppliers, their workers, and their communities as they are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon is allowing employees with roles that can be done remotely to work from home through January 8, the company said on Wednesday. Sacramento Amazon employee tests positive for coronavirus, how the company is trying to keep people safe. Early on in the pandemic, warehouse workers raised concerns that Amazon wasn't doing enough to protect them from getting sick and called for facilities with confirmed cases to be shut down. Labor groups, politicians and regulators have repeatedly pressed Amazon to disclose the total number of Covid-19 infections among workers. Amazon is pushing for front-line employees to get priority access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Thousands of Amazon employees in the U.K. were told to self-isolate after COVID-19 tests initially came back positive -- but it turned out to be a false alarm. This additional pay while away from work is to ensure employees have the time they need to return to good health without the worry of lost income. Funding will be provided through a combination of AWS in-kind credits and technical support to assist our customers’ research teams in harnessing the full potential of the cloud to tackle this challenge. The contribution supports the procurement of lifesaving PPE for 23 IOM-managed health facilities, serving to benefit both refugee and host community populations in the region. For one current and one former employee of Amazon Canada’s frenetically busy warehouses, and a worker advocate, word that the facilities have seen hundreds of COVID-19 cases is no shock. How we ramped up onsite COVID-19 testing for Amazon employees Between March 1 and Sept. 19, Amazon counted 19,816 presumed or confirmed Covid-19 cases across its roughly 1.37 million Amazon and Whole Foods Market front-line employees across the U.S. Coronavirus pandemic image copyright Reuters image caption Amazon has been privately testing UK frontline employees since October and sharing the results with public health bodies We support the Amader Kotha Helpline, which provides workers with a grievance mechanism to report and resolve factory concerns in the ready-made garment sector. In Thursday's blog post, Amazon said the total number of infections would be "more powerful" if other companies released similar data. In Bangladesh, we’ve partnered with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to distribute medical supplies and COVID-19 related resources for frontline doctors, nurses, and medical workers operating in the largest refugee camp in the world. To Seattle Public Schools students who do not have access to a device at home. There have been at least eight confirmed Amazon worker Covid-19 deaths this year, but Amazon did not give an updated figure in its announcement Thursday. One test and trace call center received more than 500 calls from employees. We are continuing to monitor suppliers for compliance with our Supply Chain Standards and are making necessary modifications to supplier assessment procedures based on internal and external stakeholder recommendations. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox. We established a $25 million relief fund for partners (e.g., delivery drivers) and seasonal employees facing financial hardship or quarantine. That estimate comes from Amazon, by the way. Covid-19 has cemented the e-commerce giant’s hold on the economy — but it has also spurred employees all around the country to organize. New pop-up clinic in Seattle is the latest in the company's multi-faceted pandemic response that has also included 1 million in-house COVID-19 tests for Amazon employees. Walmart didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. "Wide availability of data would allow us to benchmark our progress and share best practices across businesses and industries," the company said. All Amazon employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will receive up to two weeks of pay. Amazon’s food bank partners are responsible for providing, preparing and packaging all shelf-stable foods. Walmart, the largest employer in the U.S., said in April that fewer than 1% of its roughly 1.5 million U.S. employees had gotten sick with the coronavirus. We distribute personal protective equipment to our employees and require them to use face coverings while at work. The information comes months after labor groups, politicians and regulators repeatedly pressed Amazon to disclose how many of its workers were infected by Covid-19. One warehouse worker informed that they were told they were negative for COVID-19 by their employee and then wrongly notified that they were positive by NHS Test and Trace and told to … Amazon on Thursday released comprehensive data on the spread of the coronavirus among its employees, disclosing for the first time that more than 19,000 workers, or 1.44% of the total, contracted the virus this year. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought particular hardship to the migrant labor community in India, who depend on daily wages for essentials including food. Ex-Amazon employee says he was told to stay quiet on coronavirus fears 'I walked more than two hours:' After seeking asylum, she's feeding hundreds Here's … We gave our employees a special one-time "Thank You bonus" totaling over $500 million. Thousands of tests are being conducted daily, Amazon said, and it expects that to grow to 50,000 tests a day across 650 facilities by November. Between March 1 and Sept. 19, Amazon counted 19,816 presumed or confirmed Covid-19 cases across its roughly 1.37 million Amazon and Whole Foods Market front-line employees … Factories enrolled in the SCORE Training Program receive support implementing health and safety protocols and providing workers with training on health and sanitation, which has improved the working conditions of 20,000 workers, including 9,000 women. Coronavirus: Amazon workers strike over virus protection. AWS InCommunities, our AWS community engagement team, has reached out to the medical community and health workers in India to help those on the frontline by providing medical supplies and hygiene kits contributing to the fight against COVID-19. The company added 427,300 employees between January and October, pushing its work force to more than 1.2 million people globally. The online retail behemoth said in … International Organization for Migration (IOM). As part of our longstanding relationship with BSR’s HERproject, we helped to launch HERessentials, a new venture that will digitize HERproject’s and Empower@Work’s learning modules into a six-module Digital Worker and two-module Digital Manager Toolkit curriculum for remote access. We were also able to support the Nest’s PPE Purchasing initiative—a program that purchased over 200,000 protective masks to be delivered to front-line workers. © 2021 CNBC LLC. Amazon partnered with Nest, a nonprofit building a hand-worker economy of artisans to increase global workforce inclusivity, improve women’s well-being, and preserve important cultural traditions around the world. The toolkit will be available to 500,000 female workers by 2025 in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Vietnam, and will be translated into local languages. All Amazon employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will receive up to two weeks of pay. We are now using computer vision technologies in our buildings to help site leaders identify high traffic areas and implement additional measures to improve social distancing. This program distributed over $500,000 in economic relief value to 57 businesses, which altogether employed 10,510 skilled artisans. The e-commerce giant has asked Gov. We are working to balance the need to limit the movement of people and allow suppliers time to support workers and prepare production schedules with the need to have our eyes and ears on the ground. In total, 19,816 employees have had covid-19 between March 1 and Sept. 19, it said, or about 1.44 percent of the 1,372,000 front-line workers employed by Amazon during that period. With our support, Swasti is setting up a worker helpline, developing health protocols for workers to return to work safely, establishing an emergency response team, and providing critical mental health, healthcare, and social entitlement support to workers, their families, and their communities. We’re spending over $85 million redeploying team members, including some of our most talented software engineers, moving them from their typical roles onto teams where they can work on cutting-edge safety programs. AWS InCommunities provided over 3,600 kilograms of dry ration to migrant workers housed in Mumbai. Got a confidential news tip? — CNBC's Melissa Repko contributed to this article.