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Amazon will create 7,000 new permanent jobs in the UK before the end of the year, the online retail giant announced.
The company said the recruitment was higher than the 3,000 already added this year, bringing the total for 2020 to 10,000.
Amazon said it has also hired thousands of people whose jobs were affected by the coronavirus crisis, and many of them will now be able to move on to new permanent positions.
It comes after Tesco said it would add 16,000 new roles as it benefits from an increase in demand online, and in contrast to the gloom faced by the main street with store vacancies now at its highest level for six years.
The announcement was received by Business Secretary Alok Sharma.
He said: “While this has been a challenging time for many companies, it is very encouraging to see Amazon creating 10,000 UK jobs this year.”
Amazon’s latest recruitment drive will bring its total permanent UK workforce to over 40,000.
It has also already started hiring for 20,000 seasonal positions in the run-up to Christmas.
The company, which has faced criticism over working conditions at its warehouses, said pay rates would start at £ 9.50 an hour throughout the capital and £ 10.50 in London.
Amazon said the 7,000 new jobs would be added at more than 50 sites, including corporate offices and fulfillment centers.
They will include people handling customer orders, as well as engineers, in addition to human resources and IT functions.
Amazon said many of the new jobs would be created at state-of-the-art centers in Darlington, Durham and Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, each representing 1,000 positions.
The Darlington site began operations in May and the other two will launch later this fall, the company said.
Stefano Perego, Amazon’s Vice President of European Customer Fulfillment, said, “Our people have played a critical role in serving customers in these unprecedented times and the new roles will help us continue to meet customer demand and support small and medium-sized businesses that sell on Amazon. “
