The online retailer also stated that global employee injuries and illnesses that resulted in time away from work decreased by 43 percent in 2020, to 2.3 per 100 employees, down from 4.0 the previous year. Amazon has never previously reported global incident figures.
The disclosures come in the wake of increased public scrutiny of the Seattle-based company's labor practices.
According to Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Washington Post, serious injury rates at many Amazon facilities are around double industry standards. Legislation has targeted employers such as Amazon for using productivity quotas, and a US Labor Department office has recently begun auditing how the government has responded to rising warehouse injuries in the pandemic.
According to Amazon, it spent $300 million on safety improvements last year.
According to Amazon's new safety report, there were 6.4 injuries in its U.S. warehouses for every 200,000 working hours in 2020. According to government data, the industry average was 5.5, according to the report.
The company's injury rate for Amazon's U.S. transportation and logistics arm, which includes workers at Amazon's delivery depots and air hubs, was 7.6. According to the report, this was higher than the industry average of 9.1. (Amazon has been chastised in the past for fatal incidents involving contracted delivery firms that were not included in its tally.)
Amazon's report highlighted, among other safety initiatives, technology developed with partners that allows forklifts to avoid collisions by detecting their distance from people and structures.