As Amazon’s Vice President of Global Workplace Health and Safety, I lead a team of over 10,000 safety professionals dedicated to protecting the health and well-being of our 1 million+ employees every day. We recognize that each person is someone’s family member or friend, and that’s why safety is our top priority. We are striving to become the benchmark for safety excellence across all industries in which we operate.
2024 was a pivotal year for Amazon’s safety initiatives, filled with progress through an effective strategy across our global operations. While I am pleased with our consistent improvement, we recognize there is always more work to be done.
I am happy to share our full-year 2024 data, demonstrating continued year-over-year improvement in safety. Below are key updates from around our global operations:
- Our Recordable Incident Rate (RIR), which tracks any work-related injury that requires more than basic first aid, has seen a 34% improvement over the past five years and a 6% year-over-year (YoY) decrease.
- Our Lost Time Incident Rate (LTIR), which includes any work-related injury requiring time away from work, has decreased by 65% in the last five years and 13% YoY.
In the U.S., we report our data to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under various industry codes. Most of our data falls under the General Warehousing and Storage and Courier and Express Delivery Services codes. We have seen year-over-year progress in all categories, continuing the positive trajectory of the past five years.
In the U.S. General Warehousing and Storage industry:
- Our RIR improved 27% over the past five years and 5% YoY.
- Our LTIR improved 79% over the past five years and 9% YoY.
In the U.S. Courier and Express Delivery Services industry:
- Our RIR improved 50% over the past five years and 16% YoY.
- Our LTIR improved 74% over the past five years and 25% YoY.
These graphs illustrate our progress and how we compare to industry averages calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS data is based on selected employers. They release these averages in November, so the most recent averages available are for 2023.
We regularly invest in new safety measures because we aim to be the safest company in our industries. In 2025, we will allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in technology, resources, training, and programs to further enhance our safety efforts.
Understanding Our Operations and Workforce
Globally, our operations network has more than doubled since 2019, expanding to comprise over 1 million employees across more than 2,500 sites worldwide. Simultaneously, we have been dedicated to strengthening our safety culture.
We prioritize employee feedback for continuous safety improvements. This past year, I have visited our teams across the globe to see firsthand how our attention to safety is making a positive impact. I have noticed that creating several ways for employees to provide us feedback has been very successful. I am particularly proud of Dragonfly, which allows employees to make suggestions via devices or on-site kiosks. Site managers can then take immediate action as needed. In 2024, more than 130,000 employees used Dragonfly to provide feedback. Recommendations have ranged from simple ergonomic adjustments to complex safety measures, like adding laser motion sensors.
Investing in Safety Improvements
Since 2019, we have invested over $2 billion in safety, including new technologies and programs. A key component of our investment is focused on reducing MSD injuries.
Across our operations network, we are retrofitting sites with adjustable height workstations and carts and implementing our ErgoPick technology to ensure workers pick packages in their ergonomic power zone. We have also increased the use of robotics in warehouses.
Robotic systems like Robin and Cardinal handle repetitive tasks and heavy lifting. In addition, Sequoia transports inventory directly to employees’ workstations at an ergonomically friendly height.
We also plan our operations to consider extreme weather that can impact the safety of our employees and partners. Moreover, we prioritize understanding emerging trends in safety. For example, we have stocked naloxone in our U.S. and Canada fulfillment centers to enhance our emergency response.
We received eight safety awards last year from the National Safety Council, Verdantix, and the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety. These awards recognize safety innovations like our ErgoPick, our AI-enabled sensor technology that helps reduce risks when loading trailers, our employee training programs, and our world-class safety professionals.
Working Safely with Our Operations Partners
We are committed to helping our partners keep their employees safe by giving them access to our industry-leading safety technologies, resources, and training.
We are dedicated to making sure that drivers and communities are as safe as possible. To meet that commitment, we constantly design and implement new safety improvements in our branded vans for last-mile delivery. All Amazon-branded vans have camera-based technology that monitors safe driving behaviors. We also introduce live safety cues for the drivers, which proactively inform them of road hazards and areas where they need to pay extra attention.
We’ve made investments in safety through our Relay technology to book and execute work for Amazon and enhanced our safety guidance and trip-planning features for drivers. We also improved our fleet of over 50,000 branded trailers.
As a result, our scale demands exceptional road safety. It’s why we are working to create and iterate on new safety improvements for our partners to help keep them and the communities where they operate safe.
Looking Ahead
In 2024, we made meaningful progress, and I am proud of the team’s dedication to continuous improvement. Our goal to be the global benchmark of safety excellence is ambitious, but I’m confident that we will achieve it.
I extend a sincere thank you to our employees and partners for their dedication to safety and their feedback. Together, we are making Amazon safer.
