The proliferation of e-commerce-related fulfillment centers and factories in small American towns is being simultaneously hailed for creating jobs, and criticized for making other positions obsolete.
Progressive Policy Institute chief economic strategist Michael Mandel likens the rise of e-commerce jobs to a market corrective, "the pendulum is swinging back, bringing jobs to places that had been left behind," others say that more of these employers are concurrently filling more positions with automation technology, boxing out human workers. David Egan, global head of industrial & logistics research at investment and market research firm CBRE tells Axios, "Automation is here ... [and] there is absolutely a portion of this workforce that at some point over time is not going to be needed."
Campbellsville, Ky. has about 26,000 residents — and 20 percent of its working population works in e-commerce. That's largely due to two Amazon fulfillment centers. Ottawa, Kan., also a town of about 26,000 people, has 15 percent of its working population in e-commerce jobs thanks to a pair of big Walmart and American Eagle distribution centers in town. Mount Vernon, Ill., which has long been home to a Walgreens distribution center, has 9.5 percent of its working population in warehousing jobs. And the list goes on with small towns from Texas to Florida to Pennsylvania.
