E-commerce giant Amazon has announced its plan to hire 3,500 additional workers in cities across the US as part of its expansion initiative amidst the pandemic.
In a blog post, Amazon said the additional workers will be added to its efforts in cloud computing, advertising, smart assistants and grocery delivery, among other areas.
They will be part of office expansions in New York, Dallas, Detroit, Denver, Phoenix and San Diego, which will entail over 905,000 square feet of additional office space and $1.4 billion in investment.
Expansion plans
Amazon has been growing its workforce this year.
In March, it announced that it is adding 100,000 new full-time and part-time workers in the US due to a surge in online shopping amid the coronavirus outbreak. The additional staff will be placed in Amazon’s fulfillment centers and delivery network.
In a blog post, Amazon said: “We are seeing a significant increase in demand, which means our labor needs are unprecedented for this time of year.”
The firm previously announced that customers could experience more extended delivery times than usual due to the high volume of orders due to the coronavirus outbreak. As of Monday, the number of cases in the country has surpassed 4,000.
The company emphasized: “We believe our role serving customers and the community during this time is a critical one, and we want to make sure people can get the items they need, when they need them.”
The planned New York City expansion comes after fierce opposition from locals forced Amazon last year to back out of plans to construct a second headquarters in the city.
Since then, the company has said it would take over a 335,000-square foot space in Manhattan's Hudson Yards.
A 630,000-square foot office will be opened by the retailer at the Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue, which it acquired earlier this year.
Amazon said: "Teams in these cities will support various businesses across Amazon, including AWS, Alexa, Amazon Advertising, Amazon Fashion, OpsTech, and Amazon Fresh, among others."
"We expect to hire for a variety of roles, from cloud infrastructure architects and software engineers to data scientists, product managers, and user experience designers," the e-commerce firm added.
Tech companies thriving amidst the pandemic
Amazon's announcement is the latest among tech companies' move to expand their physical work spaces despite the extending telecommuting options amid the pandemic. Corporate employees have been previously told that they are unlikely to return to the office until early next year.
Meanwhile, Facebook, which previously said up to half of its workforce could be working remotely within the next five to 10 years, is also growing its physical space. The social media firm will be leasing 730,000 square feet in the old post office building at Penn Station in New York City.
Victor Calanog, the head of commercial real estate economics at Moody's Real Estate Solutions, mentioned that these investments are likely long-term bets as the typical duration for office leases on spaces larger than 100,000 square feet is more than 12 years.
Calanog argued: "While this crisis will likely prompt the office sector to evolve, it's also quite unlikely that the most extreme predictions that everyone working from home 100 percent of the time will come true."
