SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ:AMZN) – Over the past five years, Amazon created over 150,000 jobs in the United States, growing its workforce here from 30,000 employees in 2011 to over 180,000 at the end of 2016. Today, the company announced that it plans to create an additional 100,000 full-time, full-benefit jobs in the U.S. over the next 18 months. These new job opportunities are for people all across the country and with all types of experience, education and skill levels—from engineers and software developers to those seeking entry-level positions and on-the-job training. Many of the roles will be in new fulfillment centers that have been announced over the past several months and are currently under construction in Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey and many other states across the country. In addition to direct job creation, Amazon businesses like Marketplace and Amazon Flex will continue to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for people across the U.S. who want the flexibility to start their own business, work part-time or set their own schedule.

“Innovation is one of our guiding principles at Amazon, and it’s created hundreds of thousands of American jobs. These jobs are not just in our Seattle headquarters or in Silicon Valley—they’re in our customer service network, fulfillment centers and other facilities in local communities throughout the country,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO. “We plan to add another 100,000 new Amazonians across the company over the next 18 months as we open new fulfillment centers, and continue to invent in areas like cloud technology, machine learning, and advanced logistics.”

Examples of states where Amazon has created thousands of jobs and will continue to hire even more in the coming months and years:

Washington – Amazon now has over 40,000 employees at corporate offices and fulfillment centers in its home state. Once the current expansion of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters is complete, the company will have more than 30 buildings covering over 10 million square feet in the city’s downtown core.

Texas – Since 2013, Amazon has launched seven new fulfillment centers in Texas, with an eighth under construction in Houston. The current fulfillment centers located in Dallas, Fort Worth, Haslet, Coppell, Schertz, and San Marcos, employ more than 10,000 full-time associates, and the new Houston location will create more than 1,000 new full-times roles. Amazon also employs more than 500 associates in Austin at its corporate office and has openings for hundreds more.

California – Amazon Operations has created more than 14,000 full-time jobs in California since 2012 and announced four new Golden State fulfillment centers in 2016. Combined, those sites will bring over 4,000 new jobs to local communities such as Sacramento and Tracy. Amazon also has over 3,000 corporate employees across the state in a variety of businesses, including Amazon Web Services, Amazon Studios, Amazon Lab126 and more.

Illinois – Amazon currently operates five fulfillment centers in Edwardsville, Joliet and Romeoville, with another four fulfillment centers under construction in Monee, Aurora and Waukegan. More than 7,000 full-time jobs will be created in Illinois when construction is complete later this year.

Kentucky – Amazon employs more than 10,000 full-time employees across 11 sites in Kentucky and plans to bring more than one thousand new jobs to the state this year. The company recently completed a multi-million dollar renovation of its 17-year-old fulfillment center in Campbellsville.

Florida – Amazon has created more than 4,000 full-time jobs in Florida since 2013. Two new fulfillment centers were recently announced in Jacksonville, increasing the company’s presence to nine locations, including fulfillment and sortation centers and Prime Now Hubs. The new fulfillment centers will bring Amazon’s workforce in the Sunshine State to over 6,500.

New Jersey – Amazon currently employs more than 11,000 employees in New Jersey across seven sites. The company has plans to add additional fulfillment centers in the Garden State that will create 2,500 additional full-time jobs.

Military Hiring

Amazon already employs over 10,000 military veterans, and last year pledged to hire and train an additional 25,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years. In addition, the company committed to training 10,000 active duty service members, veterans and military spouses not employed by Amazon in cloud computing through AWS Educate.

Full, Egalitarian Benefits

Amazon provides employees with highly-competitive pay, health insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plans and company stock. The company also offers up to 20 weeks of paid leave and innovative benefits such as Leave Share and Ramp Back, which give new parents flexibility with their growing families. Leave Share lets employees share their Amazon paid leave with their spouse or domestic partner if their spouse’s employer doesn’t offer paid leave. Ramp Back gives new moms additional control over the pace at which they return to work. Just as with Amazon’s health care plan, these benefits are egalitarian – they’re the same for fulfillment center and customer service employees as they are for Amazon’s most senior executives.

Career Choice

Amazon’s Career Choice program helps train employees for in-demand jobs at Amazon and other companies so that they can take full advantage of the nation’s innovation economy. The program pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses in in-demand, high-wage fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a future career at Amazon. Over 9,000 employees have participated in Career Choice and more are signing up every day. Amazon created dedicated Career Choice classrooms at many fulfillment centers to make it easier for local colleges to offer classes onsite. Amazon open-sourced the program and is reaching out to companies to help them copy and adopt their own Career Choice programs.

Empowerment Programs and Indirect Job Creation

In addition to empowering its own employees to innovate and achieve their professional and personal dreams, Amazon offers a series of programs that empower people outside the company and create hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in the U.S. Amazon’s Marketplace business fuels 300,000 jobs in the U.S. for people who’ve started or are growing their own businesses by selling on Amazon. Last year alone, more than 100,000 sellers generated more than $100,000 each in sales.

Kindle Direct Publishing enables anyone to self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free and reach millions of readers. Authors earn up to 70% royalty on sales to customers, keep control of their book rights, and set their own list prices. KDP has empowered thousands of authors to achieve their dreams and make a living writing books for readers around the world to enjoy.

Amazon Web Services gives anyone – from garage startups to fast-growing businesses like Airbnb and Pinterest to established enterprises like GE and McDonalds – access to virtually unlimited compute power, storage, and other IT resources, making it faster and less expensive to launch and grow new businesses. Since its inception, AWS has empowered thousands of businesses to launch, grow and create jobs across the U.S.

Amazon Flex is a program that enables people to earn up to $25 per hour by delivering Amazon packages on their own schedule using their own vehicle and smartphone. The program launched in 2015, and there are already thousands of Amazon Flex participants across the U.S. Visit https://flex.amazon.com/ to view stories of people who are empowered by Amazon Flex.

To learn more about working at Amazon, visit http://www.amazon.jobs/.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.

Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, seasonality, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.