At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or machinists make).
Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse. It's easy for someone working as a developer to maintain that warehouse jobs aren't all "equally terrible." They mostly are terrible. The majority of warehouse workers would rather be working another job, especially Amazon workers. In many of their labor markets, Amazon is chewing through the available labor supply faster than it can be replenished. By the end of this year and especially by the end of 2024 in many markets Amazon will no longer have fresh workers. I wonder where you prime delivery will be then.
Further, Amazon might pay higher than average wages for the industry, but the high turnover creates an oversupply of warehouse skilled labor and actually depresses wages. They offer slight incentives for staying but then overwork their employees to encourage their resignations to hire newer, minimum starting pay employees.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-am...
I have, on multiple warehouse floors, for around 3 years cumulatively.
Meanwhile, it's obvious you're projecting your own inexperience. Maybe you're the one who should actually set foot in a warehouse before commenting.
> They mostly are terrible.
Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service; I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers) long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
Amazon is the exception, not the rule. Warehouse workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors - but this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
