Amazon has said it will create more than 4,000 new jobs this year, which will make it one of the UK’s top 10 largest private sector employers.
The swathes of new jobs will be bolstered by the opening of new warehouses in Wakefield and Knowsley and will take the company’s total UK staff number to 75,000.
The recruitment drive is a marked increase from the 2,500 new jobs Amazon created in 2021.
Amazon’s new jobs will be split across its warehouses, corporate offices in London and Manchester, and technology hubs in Edinburgh and Cambridge.
“We’re continuing to invest in talent right across the UK, from apprentices in Swansea to data scientists in Edinburgh,” said John Boumphrey, Amazon UK country manager.
The company added that it estimates more than 85,000 British small and medium-sized businesses sell on Amazon, which “supports an additional 250,000 jobs across the UK”.
“This means Amazon will have created 40,000 new jobs in the UK in the past three years,” the company said.
“Amazon has invested billions of pounds across the UK, enabling it to be one of the UK’s most significant job creators in recent years”.
The business, which previously unveiled plans to create 1,500 new apprenticeships in 2022, has been criticised for its working conditions across its global operations, particularly during the pandemic.
The first Amazon employers’ union was created in its Staten Island hub in New York earlier this year with other US sites including Garner, North Carolina, and Campbellsville, Kentucky, also seeking unionisation.
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