Amazon, needing a more tech-savvy workforce, is offering to pay to retrain its employees and help them switch to more technical jobs at Amazon or elsewhere.
The online shopping giant said Thursday that it plans to spend $700 million by 2025 to retrain 100,000 workers, or a third of its U.S. workforce. The initiative could help Amazon find and keep more workers With a strong economy and unemployment near a 50-year low, workers have more options, giving employers a tougher time finding help.
“The harder it is to hire workers from the outside, the more sense it makes to invest in training the workers you already have,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at job site Indeed.
The training could also help Amazon.com Inc. tame criticism from labor groups and some politicians, including presidential candidates, who say Amazon’s order-packing warehouses have poor working conditions. Amazon employs more than 5,000 workers at its fufilment centers in Chattanooga and nearby Charleston, Tennesse during peak sale periods around the Christmas holiday, making the online retailer one of the biggest employers in Southeast Tennessee.
FILE- In this Aug. 3, 2017, file photo, workers prepare to move products at an Amazon fulfillment center in Baltimore. Amazon will spend more than $700 million to provide additional training to about one-third of its U.S. workforce. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)Late last year, Amazon raised the minimum wage for all its U.S. workers to at least $15 an hour. But Amazon workers at a Minnesota facility plan to strike next week during the company’s busy “Prime Day” shopping holiday, saying that they are not paid enough for the speed at which they’re expected to pack boxes.