Amazon To Create 100,000 US Jobs, Largely In New Fulfillment Centers

ECommerce giant Amazon announced Thursday (Jan. 12) it plans to create 100,000 full-time, full-benefit jobs in America during the course of the next year and a half.

In a press release, the company said the jobs are for people around the country with different types of experience, education and skill levels, including everything from engineers and software developers to those who want entry-level positions and on-the-job training. Amazon said many of the jobs will be in the company’s new fulfillment centers that are currently under construction in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey and other states around the country.

“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,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, in the press release. “We plan to add another 100,000 new Amazonians across the company over the next 18 months as we open new fulfillment centers and continue to invent in areas like cloud technology, machine learning and advanced logistics.”

While Amazon made the announcement on Thursday, media reports pointed out that, last year, Amazon said it would build 26 new fulfillment centers in the U.S., which is where many of the new jobs will be. By announcing the jobs again, it could smooth relations with President-Elect Donald Trump, which were contentious during the run-up to the election. As Forbes pointed out in a report, Trump took aim at Amazon on the campaign trail and even threatened to launch antitrust investigations into Amazon and The Washington Post. While those were once threats, now that Trump is the president-elect, Bezos has no choice but to play nice. In one Trump tweet before the election, he put it this way: “The @WashingtonPost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @Amazon.”

“If @Amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @WashingtonPost scam is saving it!” Trump additionally tweeted.