Amazon could be the first company worth $1 trillion — but it'll cost a lot of jobs to get there (AMZN)

pulse

August 9, 2017 6:32 PM

Artificial intelligence and a growing market cap could put a lot of US jobs at risk.

Amazon is changing the job landscape in the US, taking away retail jobs but adding ones in its warehouses and elsewhere.

Amazon is growing like crazy and might be the first company to be worth $1 trillion.
But, regulation and public pressures over the changing job market may hinder Amazon's rise.

Amazon has shot to historic highs this year and could eventually be the first company to reach a $1 trillion market cap.

According to Anindya Ghose, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, the e-commerce giant could be the first company to break through the $1 trillion barrier for market capitalization. The company is currently worth about $476.07 billion, which means it would need a 110.1% increase in its stock price to reach that level.

But Ghose thinks Amazon's rise will come at the expense of lots of retail jobs. "Ia blessingsimultaneouslygoingeconomy," Ghose told Business Insider.

The company has already announced a pilot grocery store where customers simply walk out with the items they want, with an in-store tracking system automatically charging customers' accounts the price of the chosen goods. This type of innovation could mean the end of traditional cashier jobs.

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This level of job losses could draw regulatory scrutiny. Democratic lawmakers took aim at huge modern companies and mega-mergers in their "Better Deal" plan that was announced recently. The plan hopes to take a fresh look at antitrust laws as they apply to modern companies and look into the power of large companies like Amazon.

One defense Amazon could use against accusations of job losses would be that it creates jobs for people elsewhere in the economy. 20,000 people applied for a job at Amazon in a day-long job fair where the company was looking to fill 50,000 warehouse jobs.

And Amazon's sheer scale and diversity of its businesses could pose another obstacle for any antitrust action. For regulators to successfully bring a case against Amazon, they would have to change how we think about monopolies and antitrust law, Ghose said.

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