Amazon is creating 10,000 permanent jobs in the UK as the company bolsters its workforce in response to the pandemic boom in online shopping.
The company, which has also announced that it intends to hire 75,000 workers in the US and Canada, is opening a parcel centre in Doncaster and four fulfilment warehouses in Gateshead, Swindon, Dartford and Hinckley this year to keep up with shopper demand.
The new jobs include a wide range of roles at its corporate offices, such as engineering, fashion, video production and cloud computing, in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Cambridge. There will also be opportunities at its growing Amazon Web Services division, which offers internet services to third parties, and at the new centres opening as part of its operations network.
Amazon’s latest hiring spree, which the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, called a “huge vote of confidence in the British economy”, will take its total UK workforce to 55,000 by the end of this year.
The US company also said it intends to invest £10m over the next three years in courses for Amazon workers who have “expressed an interest in working outside of the company”.
John Boumphrey, Amazon’s UK country manager, said: “We’re proud of the frontline roles we offer across Amazon. We also know that they will be a stepping stone for some in their career journey. For people whose ambitions fall outside of our company, we are pleased to support them by paying for training and academic courses that can get them to where they want to be.”
Amazon, which has a market value of $1.6tn (£1.1tn), said that pay in operations roles starts at £10.80 an hour in London and £9.70 in other parts of the UK, and employees receive a benefits package worth more than £700 a year and a pension plan.
“We’re creating thousands of good jobs across the UK from a diverse range of roles with excellent pay and benefits,” Boumphrey said.
In February, Amazon announced a separate initiative to create 1,000 full-time apprenticeships this year in 25 programmes, from IT to Human Resources.
The recruitment drive comes weeks after Amazon announced a 44% increase in sales to a record $108.5bn in the first three months of the year, as the company continues to benefit from the boom in online shopping during the coronavirus crisis.
Earlier this week, Amazon won a legal appeal against the EU over an order to pay €250m (£215m) in back taxes to authorities in Luxembourg, where it has its European headquarters.
This content first appear on the guardian