Feature
Fired by Bot at Amazon: ‘It’s You Against the Machine’
Contract drivers say algorithms terminate them by email—even when they have done nothing wrong.
Stephen Normandin spent almost four years racing around Phoenix delivering packages as a contract driver for Amazon.com Inc. Then one day, he received an automated email. The algorithms tracking him had decided he wasn’t doing his job properly.
The 63-year-old Army veteran was stunned. He’d been fired by a machine.