Amazon creates 1,000 UK jobs

Amazon has announced that Brexit will not be affecting its plans and that it is creating 1,000 jobs throughout the UK. This is in addition to the 2,500 jobs that it said it would be creating earlier in the year.

With the creation of the new positions, the total number of full-time Amazon employees in the UK will amount to over 15,500. The jobs will be distributed primarily across London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester and Leicestershire.

”It’s business as usual as far as we are concerned,” said Doug Gurr, head of Amazon UK. “We don’t know what the impact (of Brexit) will be. As far as we’re concerned right now, we’re keeping our heads down and continuing to do what we do. We’ll deal with whatever situation arises.” Gurr said sales were in line with expectations.

According to Gurr, the new hires will include all types of roles, from software engineers, computer managers and corporate managers in the R&D centres and head office, to operations managers, engineers, service technicians, HR roles and other ‘fulfilment roles’.

Amazon also revealed that, based on its bi-annual shopping and entertainment trends report, third party sellers generated nearly half of the company’s global sales via Amazon Marketplace. In the UK 74,000 jobs are supported by these third party sellers. In the last year, the number of these small businesses that has achieved a turnover of over one million pounds has increased by 20 percent, the company said.