Amazon flexed its muscles in Europe last week, reminding lawmakers, regulators, and politicians of the positive impact its company has in their region, including its role as job creator – and it took pains to show it isn’t all about building out warehouses to store retail inventory.
European computer scientists and software development engineers are working on projects that involve the Amazon retail website and mobile apps, digital media, devices and device software such as voice recognition technology, Prime Air, and cloud services.
Amazon revealed it has invested 15 billion euros in Europe since 2010 on infrastructure and operations for fulfilment and customer service, AWS datacenter regions, research and development, and more. The news came in the form of a press release, accessible on the UK website.
Among the other interesting factoids:
- Amazon currently employs over 40,000 people across Europe.
- Ten thousand of those were added in 2015.
- Amazon plans to create several thousand more new jobs in Europe in 2016.
- Amazon operates a pan EU business with over 80 corporate offices, fulfilment centers, seller and customer service centers, R&D centers, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) datacenter regions.
The 10,000 new permanent roles added in 2015 is the most Amazon has created in a single year in Europe and a 50 percent increase over 2014.
The company said it’s investing in 2016 to expand its European Fulfilment Network, increase EU-based research and development, and build new infrastructure to support its growing cloud-computing business, among other initiatives.
Xavier Garambois, Vice President of Amazon EU Retail, said among the new hires in 2016 would be workers who span “all education, experience and skill levels, from speech and linguistic scientists to digital media experts to fulfilment centre and customer service associates.”
A UK trade union told the BBC it was unable to give the news its unqualified support, stating that it has concerns about the working conditions for workers at Amazon’s warehouse.
Amazon also announced on Friday that Amazon.co.uk had been ranked number-one in Customer Satisfaction among all UK companies in a nationwide poll of 10,000 consumers, pointing to the 2016 UK Customer Satisfaction Index. It gave customers 10 pounds off any retail order over 50 pounds on Friday to thank customers.
