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Amazon plans to hire 55,000 people for corporate and tech roles around the world over the next few months, chief executive Andy Jassy told Reuters.
This equates to more than a third of Google’s workforce as of June 30, and nearly all of Facebook’s.
Jassy, in his first press interview since he rose to the top of Amazon in July, said the company needs more firepower to meet demand in retail, the cloud and advertising, among others. He said the company’s new bet of launching satellites into orbit to expand broadband access, called Project Kuiper, would also require many new hires.
With Amazon’s annual career fair set to start on September 15, Jassy hopes the time is right for recruiting. “There are so many jobs during the pandemic that have been moved or changed, and there are so many people thinking of different and new jobs,” said Jassy, who cited a US survey from PwC that 65% of workers wanted a new gig.
“It’s part of what we think makes ‘Career Day’ so timely and useful,” he said. The new hires would represent a 20% increase in Amazon’s technical and corporate workforce, which currently numbers around 275,000 people worldwide, the company said.
Amazon’s move, only the latest hiring wave it has embarked on, follows a period of scrutiny of its work practices and opposition from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Earlier this year, an unsuccessful effort by some Alabama staff members to organize highlighted Amazon’s taxing warehouse work and its aggressive stance against unions. In the aftermath of that battle, Jeff Bezos, the CEO Jassy succeeded, said Amazon needed a better vision for employees.
When asked how he could change Amazon’s demanding culture in the workplace, Jassy said his strong focus on customers and inventiveness allows him to improve.
“Everyone in the business has the freedom – and really, the expectation – to critically examine how it can be better, and then come up with ways to improve it.”
The positions Amazon markets include engineering, scientific research and robotics roles, positions that are largely new to the company rather than jobs that others have left, he said.
In a reopening US economy and tight labor market, some companies have struggled to fill vacancies and balance remote and in-person work. It was not known how many Amazon jobs – such as competitive engineer hires – had been open for some time.
Amazon, which previously touted an “office-centric culture,” then reiterated its vision and offered workers the option of spending just three days a week in its offices in person starting next year.
Already the second-largest private employer in the United States, Amazon recruited more than 500,000 people in 2020, mainly in warehouse and delivery operations. This sector has experienced significant turnover.
The company is investing heavily in building more warehouses and increasing wages to attract workers to catch up with the strong demand from buyers looking for home-delivered products. Jassy said Amazon was “very competitive on the pay side.” He said, “We led the way with the minimum wage of $ 15”, and for some states on average, “really, the starting wage is $ 17 an hour.”
Of the more than 55,000 jobs announced by Jassy, more than 40,000 will be in the United States, while others will be in countries such as India, Germany and Japan.
Amazon previously promised a big tech hiring frenzy in 2017, when it searched for a location for its second headquarters. North American city and state officials loved the company for its jobs and taxes.
Arlington, Va., The winner of the “HQ2” competition which so far has a small fraction of the 25,000 roles Amazon has promised him over a decade, currently has around 2,800 positions. The city of Bellevue where Amazon is growing near its hometown of Seattle has 2,000 more.
The career fair will be global. This is after Amazon saw 22,000 people log on from India last year, including outside the United States, Jassy said.
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