Amazon To Create Thousands Of Jobs In UK & Europe
Drones and delivery options among recruitment drive as Amazon “invests for the future”
Amazon is expanding its workforce in the UK as part of a major investment drive across Europe.
The online retail giant will create “thousands” of new jobs on the continent, including a reported 2,500 in the UK, during 2016 as it looks to ramp up the development and rollout of new delivery methods, including its drone-based Prime Air delivery service.
The company is looking for opportunities to “invent and invest for the future” as it looks to further expand after adding 10,000 people to its European payroll in 2015, taking the total workforce to over 41,000 – 14,500 of which will be in the UK, reports the Financial Times.
Strong demand
“We are seeing stronger demand than ever from our customers all across Europe, and we see lots more opportunity across Amazon’s businesses to invent and invest for the future,” said Xavier Garambois, vice president, Amazon EU Retail.
“We created more than 10,000 new jobs in 2015 and plan to create several thousand more in 2016 at all education, experience and skill levels, from speech and linguistic scientists to digital media experts to fulfilment centre and customer service associates.”
The new UK jobs, which will bring Amazon’s total UK headcount to around 14,500, will include positions in the company’s ten fulfillment centres, the London head office, its customer service centre in Edinburgh, its 24 delivery stations nationwide and its three R&D facilities around the country.
These R&D centres are of particular interest to the country as they are working on big-name projects such as the Alexa cloud-based personal assistant as well as Prime Air, which is currently undergoing thorough testing.
The company says it has invested around €15bn (£11bn) in Europe since 2010, £4.6bn of which was specifically in the UK, as it looks to strengthen its position in the region.
The news comes shortly after Amazon announced new investments in London for a new UK head office to house many of its staff, and a new data centre region for its Amazon Web Services customers alongside existing centres in Frankfurt and Dublin.
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