Amazon is adding 3,000 jobs in Boston, including in AI, finance, and HR, as it continues its pandemic hiring spree

• Amazon is rapidly expanding its corporate and tech workforce in Boston.
• It's adding 3,000 positions in the city "over the next several years," it said. About 400 roles are already open in the area.
• The roles will be based at its Boston Tech Hub and a 17-story office building that it's just leased.

Amazon, already the second-largest employer in America, is expanding its workforce by hiring 3,000 corporate and tech employees in Boston, it announced Tuesday.

The jobs would include technology, AI, and software development roles, Amazon said. They would also include jobs in HR and finance, as well as in support teams across its web services, robotics, pharmacy, and Alexa divisions, it said.

It marks a continuation of Amazon's hiring spree during the pandemic, driven by record demand and rising profits. It added 400,000 new jobs in 2020.

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Amazon, second only to Walmart in the size of its US workforce, planned to hire the people "over the next several years," it said. About 400 roles are already open in the Boston area.

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Some of the new jobs would be based at its existing Boston Tech Hub, Amazon said, which already has around 3,700 staff, but it has also leased an additional 17-story office building in the city's Seaport district.

As well as work space and "innovation labs," the site would also have a community dog park, ground-floor retail space, and two theaters for local residents, Amazon said. The development is set to be completed in 2024.

It is also set to open a slightly smaller building in the Seaport district later this year that can hold 2,000 employees.

Demand has hit record levels for the e-commerce giant during the pandemic, because of waves of non-essential store closures and demand for contact-free shopping. Its net profit for the third quarter roughly tripled, to $6.33 billion.

As a result, Amazon has been on a hiring spree. It added 400,000 new jobs in 2020, held a hiring day to fill 33,000 roles, and beat Boeing to become Washington state's biggest private employer.

And to accommodate new workers, it needs more physical space: The company said in July it expected to grow its footprint by roughly 50% in 2020, compared to 15% the year before.

These space expansions are mainly in its fulfilment centers, where Amazon stores items and packages deliveries, but it also announced in August that it would spend $1.4 billion expanding its physical offices in six "tech hubs" around the country: Dallas, Detroit, Denver, New York, Phoenix, and San Diego.

This would allow it to add around 3,500 jobs, it said. It's also building a new 630,000-square-foot office on Fifth Avenue in New York, which it acquired from WeWork in March for a reported $1 billion.

Despite its rapid expansion, Amazon has come under fire for how it has treated its staff during the pandemic.

In October, former Amazon employees protested outside CEO Jeff Bezos' home, calling for free healthcare, better protective equipment and cleaning supplies, and increased hazard pay, and four Democratic senators wrote to Bezos, accusing the company of spying on its staff and undermining their right to unionize, which the company denied.

The majority of Amazon employees are generally satisfied with their jobs, including with the level of compensation they receive and the company's leadership, a new Insider poll found.