Amazon to add more than 100,000 jobs in U.S. hiring spree

Date: 13 Jan 2017 | posted in: Media Coverage, Retail | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Reuters Wire Service – January 12, 2017

by Jeffrey Dastin and Emily Stephenson

Republished (with slight variations) in:

CNBC, Newsweek, Daily Mail UK, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News, New Hampshire Union LeaderNew Hampshire.com, Netscape News, Strategy Business Group, & Gadgets 360.

Amazon.com Inc on Thursday said it will create more than 100,000 jobs in the United States, from software development to warehouse work, in its latest move to win over shoppers by investing in faster delivery.

The world’s largest online retailer will grow its full-time U.S. workforce by more than 50 percent to over 280,000 in the next 18 months, it said in a press release.

Reported to have a grueling work culture, Amazon has come under fire for operating stifling-hot warehouses and not recording workers’ injuries.

The company also is bleeding brick-and-mortar retailers of more jobs than it has created, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “Amazon is an even lower-paying employer than other warehouse operators,” said the institute’s Co-Director Stacy Mitchell.

Amazon said it has a focus on safety, conducting millions of checks each year and requiring safety training for workers. It said employee pay is highly competitive and benefits are the same for warehouse workers and executives.

It did not immediately comment on its impact on brick-and-mortar jobs.

The company’s shares rose 1.8 percent to $813.64.

(Reporting by Laharee Chatterjee in Bengaluru, Jeffrey Dastin in New York and Emily Stephenson in Washington; editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Dan Grebler)

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Nick Stumo-Langer was Communications Manager at ILSR working for all five initiatives. He ran ILSR's Facebook and Twitter profiles and builds relationships with reporters. He is an alumnus of St. Olaf College and animated by the concerns of monopoly power across our economy.