French booksellers hit out at Amazon

The French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF) has issued a statement attacking Amazon, claiming it is destroying more jobs than it creates.

The US online giant inaugurated its fifth French warehouse last week, near Amiens in the north, and plans to open a sixth in the Paris region next year. French president Emmanuel Macron attended last week’s opening ceremony.
 
But the SLF claimed job destruction was “the true price of Amazon’s expansion,” in a statement issued on Friday (6th October). Amazon has increased the purchase of robots faster than it has recruited staff, the SLF alleges. A study published by MIT last March said each robot introduced on the labour market destroys six jobs and leads to a drop in average salaries because of the growing demand for work.  “On this basis, Amazon would have destroyed almost 300,000 jobs in the world, as many as the number of its staff,” the SLF claimed.
 
Tens of thousands more jobs have disappeared because competitors are wiped out by Amazon’s “dumping,” and its own staff suffer from pressure and intimidation, the association said. The SLF also attacked Amazon's record on tax.
 
France has an alternative, the network www.librairiesindependantes.com, the SLF added. The network comprises 700 indies, has a larger catalogue than Amazon and enables customers to order books online and collect them from a shop more rapidly than Amazon could deliver, the statement said. Customers also save on shipping costs and benefit from a 5% reduction if they hold a loyalty card.

Amazon France has yet to respond to a request for comment.