Amazon announced plans Tuesday to hire 3,500 corporate employees in tech hubs across the country, including Denver, Dallas, San Diego, Phoenix, Detroit, and New York City.
While many of the company's tech employees are still working remotely, the move marks a commitment to growing the footprint of office space despite the coronavirus pandemic.
"Right now, we're seeing really significant demand for technical innovation," said Ardine Williams, VP of workforce development at Amazon. "What better way to give back to the communities in which we're a part than to create jobs in those tech hubs?"
The e-commerce giant has hired 175,000 workers since the beginning of the pandemic, many of whom are working in warehouses or on the frontline to deliver packages.
This latest bout of hiring, however, will focus on highly-skilled tech workers who will help build up the company's technology infrastructure.
"As we move to more remote work, the demands on IT infrastructure, on applications, on technical solutions has increased as well," Williams said.
Williams added that tapping into new talent pools is another goal of the hiring push.
"It's still very competitive in the tech market," she said. "There was a shortage of software development engineers, solution architects, technical programming editors before the pandemic. Many of those skills are still in very high demand, and we are continuing to work hard to recruit that talent."
Out of the 3,500 new jobs, 2,000 will be based in New York City at the former Lord & Taylor flagship department store in Manhattan.
The company is also investing $1.4 billion in 900,000 square feet of new office space across the six cities — though 650,000 square feet will be in New York City alone.
"As the second-largest employer in the United States, we believe that we have a role to play in creating good jobs," Williams said.
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