Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced its plan to create additional 100,000 full-time, full-benefit jobs in the United States over the next 18 months. The e-commerce giant is already considered one of the largest employers in the country with more than 180,000 employees at the end of 2016.
Amazon said its U.S. workforce is expected to reach over 280,000 by mid-2018, an increase of more than 50%. The company said the new job opportunities are for people with all types of experience, education, and skill levels from engineers, software developers, and those seeking entry-level positions and on on-the-job training.
Amazon said many of the positions would be available in the new fulfillment centers, which are currently under construction in California, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, and other states across the country.
Amazon jobs for local communities across the U.S.
Amazon Founder and CEO Job Bezos, said, “Innovation is one of our guiding principles at Amazon, and it’s created hundreds of thousands of American jobs. 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.”
Bezos added that the company continues to innovate in cloud technology, machine learning, advanced logistics, and other areas. The e-commerce giant already created thousands of jobs in Washington, Texas, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Florida, and New Jersey.
Amazon currently employs more than 10,000 military veterans. The company promised that it would hire and train additional 25,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years.
The company’s businesses such as Amazon Flex and Marketplace is expected to continue to create thousands of jobs for people who want to start their own business or the flexibility to work part-time and set their schedule.
Trump team takes partial credit for Amazon’s job creation
Amazon’s announcement regarding its job creation came a month after President-elect Donald Trump’s meeting with Silicon Valley chief executives, which was attended by Bezos. The focused of the meeting was bringing jobs back to the United States.
During the campaign, Bezos criticized Trump for his “appropriate behaviors.” He noted that the President-elect tried to “chill the media and threaten retribution and retaliation” against those who criticized him.
On the other hand, Trump called Bezos as a “huge antitrust problem and Amazon as a “big tax shelter.”
After the meeting with Trump, Bezos offered a positive comment. He said the meeting with the President-elect, his transition team, and tech leaders was “very productive.” He also said, I shared the view that the administration should make innovation one of its key pillars, which would create a huge number of jobs across the whole country, in all sectors, not just tech — agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing — everywhere.
During a press conference on Thursday, Trump’s incoming press secretary Sean Spicer said Amazon announced its jobs creation “after the President-elect met with heads of several other tech companies and urged them to keep their jobs and production inside the United States. The president-elect was pleased to have played a role in that decision by Amazon.”
Earlier this week, Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA) pledged to create one million new jobs in the United States over the next five years. The Chinese e-commerce giant’s Founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma met with Trump and said his company is focused on supporting American small businesses particularly in the Midwest.
