Amazon’s Black employees say the company’s HR department is failing them
In interviews with Recode, dozens of Amazon employees detailed allegations of racial bias and discrimination on the job — and many of them said the company’s HR department was part of the problem.
Amazon has never been known as an easy place to work. It’s not uncommon for job candidates to ask Amazon’s recruiters about an infamous New York Times story from 2015 that reported corporate employees routinely cry at their desks. Amazon corporate managers have goals for “unregretted attrition” — basically a percentage of their staff that should leave the company each year, either voluntarily or by being forced out.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has famously said the company’s goal is to be the “Earth’s most customer-centric company,” and for decades that singular focus seems to have come at the expense of nearly all else. But now a growing swath of its employees say this singular focus has helped perpetuate a race problem inside Amazon — and, crucially, that attempts to address it over the years have been stymied by the company’s HR department and its leader.
Pearl Thomas, a 64-year-old Black woman and human resources business partner, is one of these employees. She worked at Amazon for less than a year before she sued the company this May for alleged racial discrimination and retaliation. Her lawsuit is one of five different suits filed in recent months from current and former Amazon employees that detail shocking allegations of racial discrimination.
