I'm sorry but I literally LOL.
Yeah, let's open a small shop in town to go against Amazon. That'll sure work. What a naive take.
Plenty of shops in my town that sell stuff I can find cheaper on Amazon. Also plenty of employers too (which is the kind of "shop" I was talking about) that compete with Amazon on the employment market.
Pretending that people would be better with less employers in town and laughing at the suggestion that anybody can come in and steal away employees from Amazon if they are unhappy there - is the naive take.
I live in a small town in Eastern Europe and I get contacted weekly by individual investors, firms and funds. In my turn, I mentor entrepreneurs and invest (angel, seed or later rounds) in ideas that could make a difference locally.
Throw away your scarcity mindset. It's outdated.
> the only shop in town
Feel free to open your own "shop in town" to offer employees another choice. Till then, 1 is much, much better than 0.