Amazon Hires 3,500 ‘White Collar’ Workers Days After Cutting ‘Blue Collar’ Delivery Jobs

Weeks after Amazon reported blowout second-quarter results, including massive beats on the top line, and double-digit revenue growth YoY - supported by an explosion of online shopping amid the virus pandemic - the e-commerce giant is set to expand physical offices and add thousands of "white collar" jobs across the US according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

The news of the hiring spree comes less than a week after the company announced plans to cut ties with small contract delivery firms across the country, costing 1,200 delivery drivers their jobs.

And as all the big banks talk about reducing their physical footprint, Amazon is following Facebook in expanding into even more office. The e-commerce giant is looking into office space in New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Detroit, and Dallas.

The hiring wave is expected to add nearly 3,500 jobs to AMZN's head count across all six cities, along with more than 2,000 of them heading for the former Lord & Taylor building in Midtown Manhattan - also known as the "consolation prize" Bezos gave to New York City after deciding that he'd had enough of AOC's nonsense and scrapped his plans for an "HQ2" in the city. Sources told The Journal that Amazon purchased the Lord & Taylor building for more than $1 billion.

Amazon, like many other retailers, was blindsided by the surge in online orders during the virus pandemic, and is now expanding rapidly to make sure logistical bottlenecks and supply chain shortages don't happen again as millions of Americans embrace remote work and shopping online.

Many of the new corporate jobs will include engineering and product management positions, as well as others in Amazon Web Services, the Alexa virtual assistant team, advertising, and Amazon Fresh.

Vice President of Workforce Development Ardine Williams told The Journal all the jobs being added are new.

The pandemic has entirely reshaped how Americans consume. Amazon understands the evolving situation and is significantly scaling up its backend so that it can handle an influx of future orders without hiccups.

It all depends if they have the ordered product in a fulfillment center or is being shipped by a third party vendor, especially those out of country. Prime usually does ship faster and most times no shipping charges. Plus, they have an easy return policy that includes a pre-paid return label.

I haven't been to a mall for about 6 years. I've been using Amazon for everything and have had no problems. Most items arrive before the estimated delivery date. That said, I can't stand Bezos' politics, but he sure built a convenient business model. I will continue purchasing through Amazon. He can get richer and I get no hassle shopping and free delivery with Prime.

Pretty much the only thing I go to the mall for anymore is shoes. The wife does the amazon thing for them. But I still need to try before I buy. Though I’ve got easy feet, I rarely need to try more than 1 pair. It’s emotional.

I find some of the people’s complaints funny. Heck I’m old enough to remember when mail order was really mail order. You mailed your order, which took close to a week to get there, they needed weeks to process, then another week for it to come to you. The old “allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery” days. You forgot what you ordered before you got it. It’s was like giving yourself presents. Now people are all “it took 4 days!!” Patience grasshopper.

Yes, items like shoes you have to try on.

I made a mistake in my above post about return policy after checking with the wife. You either take the item directly to a Kohls and get an immediate refund to your account or go to your purchased item on Amazon, click return and print out a pre-paid return label. They no longer provide a return label with the item. I've never had to return anything, so that's why I checked with the wife. Now that she is retired, she's always buying something from Amazon Prime and has NO complaints.

Now that Amazon is building more fulfillment centers and buying more delivery trucks it will probably make their service even better.

The trick is once you find and item on line and the vendor will ship with a charge, you then go to Amazon and most times you can find the same item at a lower cost and shipped quicker. I don't understand the complaints here. Maybe they don't notice their item is being shipped from a third party and/or different country.

My only gripe is depending on the item, they don't say what country of origin. Like most nowadays, I don't want anything from China. Still, once item is hand (say cargo shorts) and you see the label, the no questions asked return policy is simple, convenient, and user friendly. Most people don't know you can take the item Kohls in whatever box or bag you choose, even if you've thrown away the original packaging.

Just wish I had bought stock in the company since it is the future most retail shopping.

Golly if their terminating contracts with small independent contractors for deliveries I wonder if maybe they have been expanding their own in house drivers.

Yes. Amazon deliveries once came to my house via UPS. This was good because UPS learned how to deliver to my and not the neighbors or somewhere down the road. Then came the independent contract deliveries, with drivers using their own cars or vans. Now it's all Amazon van delivery, with a photo taken of the the package. Sadly, UPS has now forgotten how to deliver to my house.

When buying on Amazon, the site tells you if if an item is covered by Prime. Sold by Amazon or fulfilled by Amazon is. Other 3rd party sellers are not, and get delivered by whatever.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.