Amazon Trades Like a Tech Stock But Pays Like a Warehouse

Amazon is often compared to Silicon Valley tech giants like Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, but a vast logistical apparatus separates it from its tech peers. They unload trucks, drive forklifts and walk miles collecting products to fill orders--all for around the same pay as workers in other companies' warehouses. One researcher likened Amazon to the child produced by a three-way merger between Google, United Parcel Service Inc. and Walmart Inc. "At Amazon, you've got this whole group of foot soldiers out there that are working on fulfillment centers that aren't part of the picture for the other names in internet land," said Michael Olson, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray. "It shows how Amazon is different from the other tech stocks." More than 330 large public companies have disclosed median annual pay figures for the first time this year, a requirement of the post-financial crisis Dodd-Frank law.