Going off of data from their stock quotes on MarketWatch and doing some quick math, Amazon profited nearly $100,000 per employee in 2021. Profited. That’s subtracting operating costs, labor costs, etc.
How I reached this number? In 2021, Amazon reached just past 1 million employees, and due to supply costs rising, their quarterly expenditures rose significantly from the usual ~$2 billion to about $6 billion. Overall, their annual expenditures were close to $24 billion, but their revenue for that year was $121 billion. Subtracting their operating costs from their revenue, you get $97 billion in profits. $97 billion divided by the number of employees for that year, and you get just under $100,000. This is pure profit, discounting expenses and employee pay. This isn’t even accounting for Bezos’ profits from his significant shares in Google, Uber, and Airbnb. Also not accounting for Blue Origin or The Washington Post, both of which he owns.
Jeff Bezos’ salary is $80,000 per year. This is for a number of reasons, most significant being the tax break, and secondary being that he doesn’t really need the money given he can spend his companies money instead of his own on a number of things and write it off as a “business expense.”
This is also discounting his stock portfolio which is worth billions.
According to Google, the average pay of an Amazon employee is around $100,000. So, Amazon is practically getting free labor given their profits.