Key Highlights:
- Amazon is planning to hire 55,000 people for corporate and technology roles globally in the coming months
- That’s equal to more than a third of Google’s headcount as of June 30 and close to all of Facebook’s.
- Amazon would allow employees to spend only three days a week in person at its headquarters.
Amazon to employ 55,000 individuals
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told that the company plans to employ 55,000 individuals for business and technical jobs throughout the world in the coming months.
As of June 30, that amounted to more than a third of Google’s workforce and nearly all of Facebook’s.
In his first press interview since becoming Amazon’s CEO in July, Jassy said the firm needs additional firepower to keep up with demand in retail, cloud computing, and advertising, among other areas. Project Kuiper, the company’s latest bet on launching satellites into orbit to expand internet access, he added, would also necessitate a large number of new jobs.
With Amazon’s annual job fair starting on Sept. 15, Jassy believes now is a good time to hire. “There are so many jobs during the pandemic that have been displaced or have been altered, and there are so many people who are thinking about different and new jobs,” Jassy said, citing a PwC poll in the United States that found 65 percent of employees sought a new career.
Significant focus on consumers and innovation
Amazon’s hiring binge is the company’s latest during a time of increased scrutiny of its labor policies and resistance from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. An unsuccessful attempt by some employees in Alabama to form a union earlier this year exposed Amazon’s demanding warehouse work and strong anti-union attitude. Following the dispute, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whom Jassy succeeded, stated that the company needed a clearer vision for its workers.
When asked how he would modify Amazon’s rigorous working culture, Jassy said the company’s significant focus on consumers and innovation made it ripe for change.
“Everybody at the company has the freedom – and really, the expectation – to critically look at how it can be better and then invent ways to make it better.”
Amazon is advertising engineering, research science, and robotics jobs, which are mostly new to the firm rather than jobs that have been vacant for a while, according to the company.
Office-centric culture
Some businesses have struggled to fill vacancies and mix remote and in-person employment amid a recovering US economy and tightening labor market. It’s unclear how many of the Amazon positions – such as competitive engineering hiring – have been open for a long time.
Amazon, which had previously boasted an “office-centric culture,” eventually scaled back its ambition and, beginning next year, would allow employees to spend only three days a week in person at its headquarters.
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