Amazon's crazy jobs fair reveals 2 ways it's the most powerful company in America
Amazon is a powerhouse.
Its recent deal with Whole Foods resulted in a $13.7 billion merger. It has been accused of killing Black Friday and squeezing out tons of smaller competitors. Its current market cap sits at $482.19 million.
On Wednesday, the tech giant held a nation-wide jobs fair, and we visited one event held at the company's Robbinsville, New Jersey warehouse. Two photos from that day show some of the reasons Amazon is so powerful: It's massive, and everyone wants to work there.
1. Amazon is absolutely massive
It's hard to get a feel for size from a website, but just look at this shot of the warehouse floor. It looks colossal, but this doesn't even scratch the surface of how huge the space felt.
The warehouse, which was opened in 2014, measures nearly 1.2 million square feet. It seemed to go on forever as we trekked past the workers, automated machines, and bins of merchandise.
Consider it representative of Amazon's size as a whole:
- The New York Times reported that the company raked in $857 million last quarter, and its retail revenue jumped 28%.
- Back in 2016, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney predicted that Amazon could be the world's first trillion-dollar company: "For all of us here, this was the biggest investment miss of our lives. If you bought Amazon at the IPO, you'd be up 51,000%."
- According to Markets Insider, Barclays agreed, predicting growth in the company across the board: "The bank thinks that Amazon could reach 200 million Prime members by 2021. Currently there are about 75 million."
2. People really want to work there
In this photo, you can't even see the end of the long line of prospective job candidates - it's blocked by the truck handing out free shaved ice to people waiting in the sun. The actual end of the line is nearly at the end of the enormous building.
In short, there were a ton of people here, looking for work. Clearly, people want to work at Amazon:
- As of February, Geek Wire reported that the company had a total of 341,000 employees, having hired 110,000 people in 2016 - that's up from 32,000 in 2012.
- The company said it hoped to fill 50,000 open positions during jobs day.
- Amazon received 20,000 applications on Wednesday alone.
- We spoke to prospective employees who had been waiting in line for an hour. The Washington Post reported on hopeful job seekers waiting for five or more hours at a time in Baltimore.
- Candidates told us that the benefits - including tuition reimbursement, 401(k) matching, and restricted stock options - are a big draw.