A Revolution at the Last Mile: How Logistics is Shaping Work in the Grocery Industry

• In Event: 50404 - Risk and Uncertainty in the New Economy, from Labor to Finance

Abstract

E-commerce, the online purchasing and delivery of goods, has grown tremendously as a share of sales in the grocery sector as a result of Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its growth, e-commerce faces a labor cost problem in an industry already plagued by low margins and low productivity growth. How is work in the grocery industry being changed by attempts to deal with the high cost and low productivity growth? This paper is based on interviews with workers, union representatives, and industry experts to build a case study of a brick-and-mortar grocery store and an online native retailer in southern California. The adoption of e-commerce is transforming grocery work not through automation, but through the restructuring of stores and work to look and function more as distribution centers. This labor restructuring allows for work rationalization and cost cutting through the Neo-Taylorism of logistics. This article has implications for understanding the transformation of low wage service sector work in the wage of the logistics revolution, as well as contributing to debates about automation and productivity.

Author

• Katy Habr, Columbia University