On Thursday, the online giant Amazon announced that it plans to provide 100,000 new jobs over the next 18 months. This addition of new positions increased the 56 percent in the 180,000 full-time positions in the United States reported near the end of 2016.
In Baltimore, Amazon has a new warehouse that currently employs around 3,000 full-time workers. The Baltimore warehouse is one of 70 others in the U.S. that provide opportunities for many Americans. This comes as good news since Macy’s recently announced that it is tanking 10,000 job positions and closing many of its stores. The Limited has also reported that after sixty years its closing its doors for good. This gets rid of 250 stores and more than 4,000 jobs.
It is also fortunate that many new positions are becoming available. Online shopping has been the bane of many retailers this season. It’s safe to say that the increase in online shopping over the last few years has cost more jobs than Macy’s and the Limited combined. It’s reported that online retailers usually obtain $1,267,000 in sales as opposed to the in-store number $279,000.
Yet in order to boost the economic growth, there has to be an increase in productivity. Amazons 100,000 jobs are open to software developers as well as engineers. This comes at a time when the company is furthering its use of technology that one day might replace the human worker all together. Amazon, on the other hands, says its robots work with humans instead of replacing them.
Amazon hasn’t been shy when it comes to the details of its hiring. Since the company has begun building more warehouses that specialize in the packaging and shipping of goods. Amazon’s expansion started in 2011 when it began agreements with certain states to collect taxes in them. While the company did this, it also decided to make fast shipping part of its top priority which can only happen if Amazon opens more shipping and packaging warehouses around the country.
During the presidential elections, Donald Trump had a few words for Amazon and its owner Jeff Bezos who also owns the Washington Post. Trump accused Bezos’ Amazon of having an “antitrust problem”. However, Bezos went with many other technology executives to meet with the president-elect just last month. There was also a meeting with Trump after Amazon’s announcement of its new jobs.
Globally, Amazon employs an estimated 300,000 part time and full time workers. The company doesn’t think the figures representing its employment do it justice. The marketplace business that Amazon also owns allows independent merchants to sell their goods through Amazon. Amazon says that the marketplace sustained more than 300,000 jobs as well.
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