Whole Foods Workers Fear Amazon Robots

Last week, online retailer Amazon announced that it plans to buy upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7 billion. That left Whole Foods workers fearing layoffs and changes to their corporate culture. “Everybody’s been kind of joking that it’s going to be robots and drones,” Carmen Clark, a six-year employee of Whole Foods, told Reuters. Amazon, known for its hard-driving culture, could spell changes for Whole Foods, which was recently on a mission to cut costs under investor pressure. Amazon uses robots in its vast network of warehouses, and has been an early adopter of the potential commercial uses of drones. “I’ve heard that Amazon’s culture is pretty cutthroat. That worries me,” said one Whole Foods worker.