Under the agreement with the federation, the company plans to gradually add 25,000 new jobs at its second factory by the end of 2010, including more than 2,500 jobs last year. It will be done. Instead, Arlington will lose more than 200 existing jobs in 2023, a reduction that will likely impact the funding it receives from the state. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
“Last year, we made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of corporate roles and slow hiring around the world,” Holly Sullivan, the company’s vice president of worldwide economic development, said in a statement Monday. “That impacted our second quarter growth forecast.” evening.
Sullivan said the company hasn’t given up on its goal of hiring 25,000 people. She called the project a “long-term investment” and noted there are 1,000 open positions at Headquarters 2, which includes two towering office towers that opened last year as part of a total investment of $2 billion.
But the job losses represent a further setback in the boost Amazon initially promised to the sector, as the coronavirus pandemic and a strained tech industry prompt changes in work habits. Construction on three more office buildings and the future “Helix” that was slated to be built there has been halted for more than a year, even though the company’s contractors began installing utilities on the vacant site at Headquarters 2 last month. ing.
To receive state funding, Amazon must submit documentation to the federal government every spring detailing its total hiring progress at its second headquarters since 2019.
Applied in April last year The company announced that it has hired 6,939 qualified employees out of a total of 8,000 positions in Arlington. According to Amazon’s report this year, the company has hired 6,644 qualified jobs, bringing the total number of employees to 7,791 at its second headquarters.
Virginia’s incentives to the company are said to reward progress toward its goal of bringing 25,000 new jobs to Arlington by 2030. It is also structured to allow the company to retain these new jobs for at least five years.
State employees pay the company $22,000 for each full-time job, with an average salary of $150,000, according to the company. That contract. (That salary should increase slightly each year; last year his salary was $159,205.)
Amazon’s filing last year asked the state to pay about $153 million in taxpayer aid by the end of 2026. The employment downturn reflected in the latest report means that employment will likely remain flat next year, potentially resulting in millions of dollars less in wages in Virginia. half.
Virginia likely won’t pay Amazon in 2027 because the company filed a “progress report” this year rather than a formal application. The company had also denied applications for federal incentives through 2021, citing pandemic-related challenges. However, hiring at the second headquarters was consistently ahead of schedule.
This year’s report marks the first time Amazon has failed to meet its hiring goals in Arlington.
This story is in development and will be updated.
