Amazon announces colossal hiring plan

The retail giant says it expects to hire 100,000 full time workers over the next 18 months.

Amazon announces colossal hiring plan
Retail giant Amazon has announced a colossal hiring plan which would make any HR professional wince – it wants to take on 100,000 full time workers over the next 18 months.

"These new job opportunities are for people all across the country and with all types of experience, education and skill levels—from engineers and software developers to those seeking entry-level positions and on-the-job training," Amazon said in a statement.

While the hiring plan sounds ambitious, it’s actually in line with Amazon’s past recruitment figures – in fact, the company’s workforce has grown from 30,000 in 2011 to 180,000 at the end of 2016.

“Innovation is one of our guiding principles at Amazon, and it’s created hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” said CEO Jeff Bezos. “These jobs are not just in our Seattle headquarters or in Silicon Valley — they’re in our customer-service network, fulfilment centres and other facilities in local communities throughout the country.”

Amazon, now the world’s largest online retailer, also has a number of fulfilment centres currently under construction with locations set to open in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey and many other states across America.

The firm’s recruitment goal is just the latest self-assigned objective – in 2016, Amazon announced plans to hire another 25,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years. It also committed to training 10,000 active duty service members, spouses and veterans in cloud computing.

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