Amazon launches 5,000-head recruitment drive

20-Feb-2017 - Last updated on 20-Feb-2017 at 14:48 GMT

Amazon has launched both a 5,000 head recruitment drive and a new apprenticeship scheme

Amazon, the online retail giant, has revealed plans to recruit 5,000 more full-time workers, taking its total UK workforce to more than 24,000, and launched a new apprenticeship programme.

Amazon UK country manager Doug Gurr said: “We are creating thousands of new UK jobs, including hundreds of apprenticeship opportunities, as we continue to innovate for our customers and provide them with even faster delivery, more selection and better value.

“We are hiring for all types of roles from flight test engineers, software engineers and corporate managers in our development centres and head office, to operations managers, supervisors, engineers, service technicians, HR roles and order fulfilment roles in our fulfilment centres.”

The new full-time roles will be based at Amazon’s UK head office in London; Customer Service Centre in Edinburgh; Fashion Photography Studio in Shoreditch; AWS Europe (London) Region office and fulfilment centres across the UK. Three new fulfilment centres will be opened in Tilbury, Doncaster and Daventry.

Full-time roles

By the end of this year, more than 1,500 new roles will be located at AWS and the online retailer’s Development Centres in Cambridge, Edinburgh and London, where employees work on global customer innovations like Alexa, Prime Air, Prime Video and cloud computing.

The business planned to hire as many individuals as possible from its seasonal workforce. More than 10,000 of the company’s total workforce started with the company in seasonal roles, it said.

New apprenticeship programme

Amazon’s new apprenticeship programme will offer hundreds of apprenticeship opportunities in engineering, logistics and warehousing roles in fulfilment centres across the country.

The move followed Amazon Web Services’ launch last month of AWS re:Start, a free training and job placement programme for the UK to educate young adults as well as military veterans, reservists, and their spouses, on the latest software development and cloud computing technologies.

AWS re:Start, in partnerships Working with QA Consulting, The Prince’s Trust, and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), brings together AWS Partner Network (APN) partners and customers to offer work placements to 1,000 people as part of the programme.

Meanwhile, finance specialist Money.co.uk welcomed the creation of new UK jobs but questioned the long-term impact on competition and prices of Amazon’s expansion.

For the latest vacancies in food and drink manufacturing, visit FoodManJobs.

‘There’s absolutely no stopping Amazon’

“There’s absolutely no stopping Amazon,” said Martin Lane of Money.co.uk. “While it’s great they are creating new opportunities for UK workers, I am worried they are hindering healthy competition. If they gobble up too much of the market, it may mean higher prices in the long run.

“Amazon came under fire last year for their employment practices, so they know they’ll be under the spotlight again following this expansion. I imagine they’ll be ensuring they observe squeaky clean processes and will be committed to safe and legal hours after the BBC did an exposé on them.”