It should come as no surprise that Amazon, considered one of the ‘Big Five’ companies in the U.S. information technology industry (along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook) is doing well during the pandemic. In fact, in 2020 after a slow start to the year with a market sell-off in March, they bounced back to the tune of $1.49 trillion in worth by July – making them one of the largest companies in the world. And now Amazon has announced they will be investing into more new facilities in Quebec. However, it may be good news to those who have lost their jobs during the pandemic, but it comes at a cost – a cost to the retail sector that experienced an unprecented decline in sales to the big giants, with many businesses having to close permanently.
On January 19th 2021, they announced their continued investment in Quebec with a new sortation centre and three delivery stations in the province. The facilities will create more than 1,000 jobs with ‘competitive pay, industry-leading benefits and career growth opportunities starting on day one’.
“Amazon is proud to continue its investment in Quebec and provide our employees with great, safe jobs and better futures. Our new facilities will help us meet our customers’ growing demand for great products and faster delivery times while offering our Associates access to incredible career growth opportunities through on-the-job training and upskilling so they can reach their career aspirations. Our expansion will also help the thousands of local small businesses that partner with Amazon to get their products to customers around the world, particularly during this critical time for their business,” said Amazon Canada site leader Jean-Francois Héroux, in a news report.
Amazon opened a sortation centre in Longueuil – its first operations facility in Quebec in July 2020 that created 300 full-time jobs. And now they will be investing more with the opening of their largest sortation centre in the province in Coteau-du-Lac in 2021 – a 520,000 square foot facility (about the size of six Canadian football fields) that will create at least 500 jobs.
There will be three new delivery stations in 2021 and 2022, which will create hundreds of full-time and part-time job positions:
– The first two delivery stations in Quebec will open in 2021: one will be located in Laval at 5555 Ernest-Cormier and the other will be located in Lachine at 1100 and 1200 Rue Norman.
– The third delivery station will open in 2022 in Laval at 2700 Francis Hughes.
Amazon says that its five facilities in Quebec will create more than 1,000 jobs and speed up customer deliveries.
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