Amazon has announced it is to create 4,000 new permanent roles in the UK, taking its permanent workforce to 75,000.
The new roles will be spread across the country, including those in fulfilment centres set to open in Wakefield and Knowsley. Amazon is also creating new jobs at its physical Amazon Fresh stores which now number 19, among them the first outside London in Sevenoaks, Kent which opened last month.
As well as adding to its operational teams in fulfilment centres, sort centres and delivery stations, the 4,000 new jobs also include roles in corporate and technology functions in Amazon and Amazon Web Services (AWS), including software development, product management and engineering.
“We’re continuing to invest in talent right across the UK, from apprentices in Swansea to data scientists in Edinburgh. People join us not just for the wide variety of roles, great pay and benefits, but for the career development opportunities we provide,” said John Boumphrey, Amazon UK country manager.
“Applicants recognise we are an employer that offers great development potential, and we are proud to have so many employees growing and taking the opportunity to learn new skills that will create paths to new jobs at Amazon and beyond,” Boumphrey added.
In the first half of this year, more than half of new hires in the operations division joined Amazon from previous unemployment or directly from education.
According to new starters in 2022, pay was the top reason for joining Amazon according to 98% of new joiners. Amazon pays a minimum of between £10 and £11.10 per hour in the UK, depending on the location, more than the UK’s national living wage and the real living wage.
The joint second preferred reasons – according to the company survey – were convenient locations of work and Amazon’s benefits packages. Amazon’s benefits include private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection, and an employee discount – which combined are worth more than £700 annually – as well as a company pension plan.
Amazon also offers training and skills development, the most popular of the courses being HGV driver training, taken up by 828 employees in the UK.
Measured by jobs created, Amazon’s growth has slowed significantly this year compared to 2021. Last year Amazon created more than 10,000 new permanent jobs with the opening of four new CFCs. The e-commerce giant’s new fulfilment centre in Hinckley, East Midlands led to 700 new jobs being created, with CFCs in Dartford, Gateshead and Swindon each creating more than 1,300 roles.
In April this year Amazon globally reported its smallest year-on-year rise in revenue for 20 years: just 7% in Q1 2022. CFO Brian Olsavsky said at the time the company had too much warehouse space and staff working in them, explaining “the issue is switched from disruption to productivity losses to overcapacity”.
It has been reported that Amazon is not expected to fire workers to remedy its situation, given the high attrition rate of warehouse workers.
Once Amazon has reached 75,000 workers in the UK, it will place the company in the top 10 largest private sector employers in the UK, it said.
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