SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Seattle’s Amazon doesn’t crack ‘best places to work’ list
Dec 10, 2017, 2:57 AM
Amazon, which employs 40,000 people in Seattle, did not make Glassdoor's 'Best Places to Work.' (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
According to Glassdoor’s annual “Best Places to Work” compilation, Facebook employees really, really love their jobs. Other recognizable names on the list include: In-N-Out Burger, which ranks fourth; Google, which ranks fifth; Lululemon, which ranks sixth; and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which takes the ninth spot.
But where’s Amazon? Facebook and Google have offices in Seattle. But Amazon is the largest employer in the city and an online retail giant.
“The number one trending story on my Facebook page right now is that Facebook is the best place to work in the world,” said Don O’Neil on KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show Thursday.
RELATED: Amazon willing to hit the refresh button with Seattle leaders
Farther down the list are local employers like Microsoft (34), Zillow (57), and REI (61). Starbucks barely makes it at spot 96.
But Seattle’s biggest employer — Amazon — the one that occupies 19 percent of all prime office space within city limits, doesn’t even crack the top 100.
According to Glassdoor, Amazon isn’t one of the best places to work. Not even close.
But how is it that a job at In-N-Out might be better than one at Amazon? The fast food restaurant does give its employees full benefits, paid vacation, and free hamburgers, but employees start out at $11 an hour.
At Amazon, a software engineer easily makes six figures.
“Maybe the people at Amazon are actually doing their jobs instead of taking their workday to go fill out surveys,” Ron Upshaw told O’Neil.
The Glassdoor list is based on employee feedback, so it could be that Amazon’s workers just don’t use the site or don’t leave feedback.
Or maybe there’s more to feeling content at work than just salary and benefits. Maybe your happiness has more to do with you than it does with the place you work.
“Your job is what you make your job,” Upshaw said. “Any company has the happiest employee there and the least happy employee there. It has very little to do I think with the actual company.”
