Dallas may not have landed Amazon's HQ2, but people from across North Texas will be lining up Tuesday for a shot at one of the 30,000 full- and part-time jobs that Amazon is hiring for.
On Sept. 17, the behemoth, Seattle-based tech company will be hosting Amazon Career Day, billing it as the “nation’s largest job fair,” from 11:30 a.m. to 7 in the evening at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, 6911 Lemmon Ave. Similar events are being held in Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Seattle, and Arlington, Va. – where the company is building its second headquarters.
Amazon will be hiring for positions in a variety of functions, including roles at its headquarters, data centers, tech hubs, and fulfillment centers. The event will include networking, talks from Amazon leadership, as well as information on open roles, the company’s culture and other job-related questions. Attendees will be able to apply on-site.
“These are jobs with highly competitive compensation and full-benefits from day one, as well as training opportunities to gain new skills in high-demand fields such as robotics and machine learning,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO in a prepared statement.
Amazon has more than 650,000 employees across its network of more than 250 different countries. According to the company, Texas is home to more than 20,000 Amazon employees, with three tech hubs in the state, including in Austin and Houston. In addition, it states that it has invested more than $10 billion in Texas, generating more than $9 billion to the Lone Star State’s economy.
While Dallas is host to some of the company’s cloud-support services and fulfilment centers, it is also the planned home of one of Amazon’s next 4-star stores. While the exact location has yet to be announced, the retail space will be designed as an extension of Amazon’s online presence, where shoppers can check out deals of the day, along with other top-rated products from various genres the site sells. You can even return orders that were shipped to you, though you can’t pick up any packages there. Other 4-star stores can be found in Denver, Berkeley and New York City.
The career day event is part of Amazon’s ‘Upskilling 2025’ – a $700 million strategic plan to help hire and train workers for specialized skills ad roles within the company.
Texas, and especially the DFW area, pulled hard to bring the company’s second headquarters to the region. The incentive package offered by the city of Dallas totaled about $600 million, which would have been matched by the state – in the hopes of landing nearly 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion investment. The incentive package also included some more unusual enticements, such as a waiver on pet adoption fees for employees and a free microchipping service.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the company came incredibly close to choosing the city, even working with a local developer on a plot close to City Hall. Ultimately, the company decided on Queens in New York City and Northern Virginia. Although, after making the announcement, New York reversed its offer after public backlash, and Amazon chose to spread the remaining workers across its network.
Though offering a starting $15 minimum wage, healthcare from the beginning of employment and up to 20 weeks of paid parental leave, it has recently come under scrutiny for its treatment of workers. The company has been accused of having poor work conditions and productivity standards that in at least one case resulted in employees urinating in plastic bottles to avoid having to leave their duty and risk getting fired. ProPublica recently published an article detailing how those demand have resulted in deaths and injuries caused by overworked delivery drivers.
For more information or to register, check out the Amazon Career Day Dallas site here.
