More jobs, not robots

The move by community leaders and others to bring Amazon to the area is a bad idea. Amazon is well-known countrywide as a job destroyer. Its growth poses a threat to the economy through increased automation via warehouse robots and drones that ultimately will replace the already low-paid workers who are simply there to help them get to total automation.

Its increased dominance in the retail industry has impacted American communities with declining brick and mortar stores and traditional retailers unable to compete. Fewer workers and robotic employees mean declining property tax revenues that make for vibrant communities. The initial 50,000 new jobs will eventually decline to a few thousand. Efficiency is the key word at Amazon, not employment stability. Soon, they plan to compete with the Fed-Ex, UPS and USPS through the Roadie system, an Uber-like system using local drivers, threatening more local high paid jobs.

The local community leaders who want Amazon in Spokane should wake up and realize that like Uber and Google, Amazon is not in business to grow human employment, but to replace them with robots.

What we need here is good-paying jobs, not robots.

Bernard Korth

Spokane