Amazon creates 1,000 new jobs - bringing new positions to Staffordshire
Online retail giant Amazon is creating 1,000 jobs across the UK – including a substantial number in Staffordshire – as business continues to boom.
The firm, which celebrates its 20th anniversary next year, has already invested more than a billion pounds in its UK operation.
It now has eight huge 'fulfillment and customer service' centres across the country employing more than 6,000.
It has got planning permission from Cannock Chase Council to improve the site at Towers Business Park in Rugeley, where a number of the new jobs will be created. This is on top of 350 announced last June.
A new entrance off Wheelhouse Lane, a new lorry park and extra staff car parking are being put in place. It already employs more than 600 permanent staff on the site, which opened just over three years ago. Amazon will create the 1,000 new permanent roles at its UK centres over the next three months.
Staff now work four 10-hour shifts per week so they get three days off every week. Full-time staff start at an average of £7.39 an hour and can earn up to £8.90 an hour after two years. After one year all full-time workers receive share grants which over the past five years have added an average of 12 per cent to basic pay.
Other benefits for permanent employees include private medical insurance, a company pension plan and an employee discount. Customers have also continued to benefit from innovations. Sunday delivery is now available in seven cities including Birmingham; more than a million products in Amazon's European fulfilment centres have been made available for two-day delivery to the UK and Amazon's network of pick-up locations has continued to expand including new lockers in London's tube stations and at Birmingham Airport.
Amazon's other fulfillment centres across the UK are in Doncaster, Dunfermline, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Swansea Bay.
The company last year had sales of £3.3 billion and has become Britain's most popular retail website, with more visitors than Argos, Next and Tesco. It has faced criticism for avoiding UK tax through arrangements in Luxembourg.
