Thanks to Amazon, Brick-and-Mortar Stores Have Lost 295K Jobs

Estimated jobs lost among brick-and-mortar stores because of Amazon sales by the end of 2015: 295,000 ¹

Number of U.S. workers Amazon employed at the end of 2015: 146,000

Number of robots working in Amazon warehouses at the end of 2014: 15,000 ²

At the end of 2016: 45,000

Number of items a warehouse worker is expected to retrieve in a 10-hour shift: 1,200

Pounds of carrying capacity of one Amazon Kiva robot: 700

^3, 4

Border Patrol cameras now monitoring the Mexican border and ports of entry: 8,000 ⁵

Underground sensors: 11,000

Miles of border fencing that already exist: 688.6 ⁶

Cost per mile of border fence constructed in 2007 by the Army Corps of Engineers and National Guard: $2.8 million

Cost per mile of fence constructed in 2008 by mostly private contractors: $3.9 million

Estimated cost per mile for the border wall called for by President Trump: $27 million ⁷

Percentage of Earth’s oxygen provided by rainforests and other land plants: 28 ⁸

Percentage of Earth’s oxygen provided by ocean plants, including phytoplankton and kelp: 70

Average number of breaths a person takes in a day: 23,040 ⁹

Breaths for which phytoplankton Prochlorococcus provides the oxygen: 1 in 5

^10 11 12

¹³

1. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance
2. Business Insider
3. The Atlantic
4. CATO Institute
5. ABC News
6. Government Accountability Office
7. MIT Technology Review
8. National Geographic
9. Herald Tribune
10. Wansink 2014, Cornell University Food & Brand Lab
11. Wansink & Ittersum, American Dietetic Association
12. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
13. CIA World Factbook

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Stephen Miller is a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado and a former senior editor of YES!

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