Amazon will hire 1,500 in Memphis

Online retailer Amazon is about to jump into the ranks of Memphis’ 25 largest employers.

The Seattle company will hire 1,500 full- and part-time workers to staff a pair of new distribution centers in southeast Memphis.

Amazon disclosed the hiring plans Thursday for its sortation center and a separate building called the receives center.

Open positions at the sortation center can be found online presently, while jobs in the receives center will be listed starting Tuesday.

The company says job applications will be accepted only online at www.amazon.com/memphisjobs. Applicants can indicate a shift preference and select a time to attend a hiring event and orientation.

Amazon says full-time workers receive health care benefits the day they begin employment plus up to 20 weeks paid parental leave, a 401(k) savings plan and company stock awards. Hourly employees may enroll in the Career Choice program. According to the company, this program “pre-pays 95 percent of the cost of tuition for employees to pursue courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.”

Amazon employs more than 575,000 workers worldwide and operates more than 140 fulfillment centers and 25 sortation centers throughout the nation.

In Memphis, the receives center will employ 575 people who take in freight and repackage goods for shipment to Amazon fulfillment centers, The Commercial Appeal earlier reported. Amazon built the $70 million receives center at 3292 Holmes Road. Two miles east of that site, the company spent $10 million renovating a warehouse at 5155 Citation.

The Memphis centers appear to be the company’s only distribution facilities in West Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri, according to a report in the publication Business Insider.

Amazon officials were not available for comment Thursday. It was not clear from the statement issued Thursday whether the jobs are seasonal.

Ramping up to 1,500 employees would rank the company as No. 21 in employment size in Greater Memphis, according to a list compiled last year for the Memphis Area Association of Governments. The list shows 30 employers with 1,000 or more workers, led by FedEx’s 32,000 and Methodist Healthcare’s 10,890 employees.

Amazon is one of the nation’s fastest

growing companies. For April, May and June, Amazon reported worldwide sales of $52.8 billion, up from $37.9 billion in the same quarter last year.

The company makes money by operating an online site for consumers to shop using their computers. Amazon buys merchandise and resells it online. Its website also offers for sale the goods that an array of other retailers stock in stores or display on their own retail websites.

Amazon relies on a reputation for quick delivery to entice customers to shop online. To ensure rapid delivery, the company has been building an extensive network of warehouses like the sortation and receives center in Memphis.

Although sales revenue has shot up, after-tax profits remain small – reaching $2.5 billion in the last quarter and $197 million in the same quarter last year. Profits are limited as the company spends on new warehouses and invests in infrastructure and delivery vehicles. Earlier this year, Amazon placed an order for 20,000 Sprinter delivery vans assembled by Mercedes-Benz in South Carolina.

The company, founded in 1994 as an online book store, last year bought the grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.4 billion.