Amazon to create 100,000 jobs
Company’s workforce continues to expand
Amazon will create 100,000 full-time jobs in the U.S. with full benefits over the next 18 months, the tech giant announced in a statement Thursday.
The company says the positions are for workers across the country and across all skill and experience levels. Most of the positions will be at fulfillment centers, including new ones under construction in California, Florida, New Jersey and Texas.
Amazon also operates a fulfillment center in Kenosha.
“Innovation is one of our guiding principles at Amazon, and it’s created hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement. “These jobs are not just in our Seattle headquarters or in Silicon Valley — they’re in our customer service network, fulfillment centers and other facilities in local communities throughout the country.”
Amazon has quickly ramped up its workforce over the past few years, as it pushes to open up more fulfillment centers to get packages out to its customers more quickly.
In 2011, Amazon had 30,000 U.S. employees. At the end of last year, it employed 180,000 people.
As part of the hiring spree, Amazon says it will also hire an additional 25,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years. Amazon says it plans to train 10,000 active duty service members, veterans and military spouses in cloud computing.
As a recruitment tool, Amazon is touting its Career Choice program, which helps train employees for in-demand jobs at Amazon and other companies so that they can take full advantage of the nation’s innovation economy. The program prepays 95% of tuition for courses in in-demand, high-wage fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a future career at Amazon.
More than 9,000 employees have participated in Career Choice. Amazon created Career Choice classrooms at many fulfillment centers to make it easier for local colleges to offer classes on-site. Amazon open-sourced the program and is reaching out to companies to help them copy and adopt their own Career Choice programs.
The topic of new jobs in the U.S. has become a popular one as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. Last week, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma met with Trump, saying Alibaba will create 1 million jobs in the U.S. by allowing small businesses to sell goods to Chinese and Asian consumers through the tech giant’s platform.
Last month, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son met with the president-elect, pledging to add 50,000 U.S. jobs and pump $50 billion into the economy.