Opening remarks to European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Thank you for organising today’s session and for inviting us to meet the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.

We welcome the opportunity to share information about our operations in the European Union.

And we look forward to discussing our work to create a safe and modern environment that sets the standard for the logistics industry.

My name is David Zapolsky, and I serve as Chief Global Affairs & Legal Officer for Amazon.

In my role, over the past 3.5 years, I have personally visited Amazon facilities in more than 20 countries across Europe and met with national authorities from almost every Member State represented here today.

I work with Lucy, Stefano, and other leaders in our European business on a daily basis, and I’m happy that they are present today to complement my remarks with more information about the working environment we provide for our employees.

We believe this committee’s work is important, and we are committed to engaging constructively on topics that are relevant to the logistics industry. I regret that we haven’t been able to have this conversation sooner. We believe a company like ours should be scrutinised. And, that it’s important to scrutinise the whole industry.

Amazon's presence in Europe

Allow me to start by sharing some information about our business in the region. We began operations in the European Union almost 28 years ago, when we opened our German store. At that time, we only sold books, with prices in Deutsche Marks and very little cross-border trade.

Our business has grown significantly since then. We now employ more than 150,000 people in the EU in quality jobs across a range of functions… from management… to research and development… environmental science… film and TV… and logistics. Our employees live and work in 21 EU Member States, where we have more than 250 logistics sites, and 11 Research and Development centres.

We’ve invested more than €225 billion in the EU since 2010. In 2024 alone, the figure was over €38 billion. We also support small businesses. More than 127,000 EU-based SMEs currently sell on Amazon. These SMEs generated €15 billion in export sales in 2024. Nearly half of those sales were made by small companies in rural areas.

We’re also an important customer for many European companies, like Daimler Truck, Maersk, and Arianespace. We believe our significant investments over many years demonstrate our commitment to the EU and to our customers, employees, and partners here.

I would like to briefly turn to my colleagues in the room, Lucy Cronin and Stefano Perego, to provide more information about our operations in Europe.

Working at Amazon

I am Stefano Perego, and I serve as the Vice President for International Operations and Global Operations Services. I look after the operational aspects of our fulfilment centres and other logistics facilities.

I’ve worked at Amazon for 15 years. I spend a lot of time at our logistics sites, and would like to share my perspective about what it’s like to work at Amazon. Amazon is a responsible employer that provides quality jobs with competitive pay, excellent benefits, and real opportunities to develop skills and grow a career.

The jobs make a difference in people’s lives. They’re jobs that help them to start a family, buy a home, or go to college. These are jobs that matter to people. We pay up to 12% more than the minimum wage (or have a Collective Bargaining Agreement where applicable) across the EU.

In Germany, for example, entry pay starts at €15.65 per hour and more. The national minimum wage is €13.90 as of the beginning of this year. Full-time logistics employees in Germany have an average annual salary of €40,000 and receive excellent benefits.

In Germany, around half of our logistics workforce has been with Amazon for more than five years. It would be foolish – and un-economical – not to provide quality jobs and an engaging place to work. It’s better for everyone – for customers, for the company, and for employees. Upskilling and retaining talented staff is very important to us – especially as we deploy new technology in our facilities.

One way we seek to retain staff is by providing skills development and training opportunities. Many people in management roles at Amazon today started in entry-level positions. Our Career Choice training programme launched in Europe 12 years ago. This programme gives employees up to €8,000 for classes at more than 85 schools across Europe.

More than 50,000 employees in Europe have participated in Career Choice. This includes more than 7,000 employees in Poland, which has one of the highest participation rates across all EU countries. One of the most common misperceptions about Amazon is the idea that we do not allow employees to join a union. That’s simply not true. We are frequently confronted with misperceptions about our relationship with unions. Our employees have the right to join a union. They always have.

In fact, we actively engage with works councils and other types of employee representative bodies at sites across the EU. Our preference is that each person has the opportunity to speak directly with site management. We value a broad and diverse workforce. We’re committed to providing meaningful employment opportunities for people with disabilities. We have many programmes to accommodate vision and hearing impairments. And we provide individual accommodations, like customised work stations, as needed.

Workplace safety

Now, I would like to speak briefly about safety, which is our top priority. Why is safety so important to us? Firstly, it’s because we care for our people. We want to be the safest company in the industries in which we operate, and we’re making real progress towards that.

Like many companies in the logistics industry, we are pursuing ISO certification. ISO 45001 is the global benchmark for workplace safety.

In 2025, we successfully expanded our number of certified sites to 49, across 6 European countries—Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, and the UK. We now have more than 1,300 employees in Europe whose full-time jobs are safety. Our EU Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) – which includes any work-related injury that requires more than basic first aid treatment – has improved 31% over five years. In countries where data is available, our safety record outperforms industry averages. We’re consistently innovating and investing in safety measures. Since 2019, we’ve invested more than $2 billion in our safety efforts globally, including new technologies and programmes to protect our employees. We rigorously audit our sites to reduce safety hazards. In 2024, we conducted 1.7 million inspections across our EU facilities.

Workplace technology

Now, I’d like to give you some insight into how we use technology in the workplace.

We’ve deployed technology – like robotics and AI – for many years. Conveyor belts were once a “new technology” that people feared would replace jobs. Instead, they increased efficiency and productivity, and changed the type of jobs people do.

The same is true for technology today: In many of our sites, instead of people lifting and carrying items, we now use robots to bring those items to people. That reduces physical effort and reduces the risk of accidents. In turn, our employees can focus on new tasks that require new skills. New technology means new jobs, and new types of jobs.

For example, when we converted an older fulfilment centre in Boves, near Amiens, to a robotics site, we created 300 additional jobs on top of the existing ones. In fact, since we introduced robots into our operations, we’ve created more than 700 new types of jobs. For example, flow control specialists and reliability maintenance engineers, who monitor and repair conveyor belts as packages move through our buildings.

Many of the technologies we deploy in our sites are industry standard or industry leading. We’re always looking for new technology that helps our employees and our customers.

Broader European contributions

I am Lucy Cronin. I serve as Vice President of EU Public Policy at Amazon, and am responsible for engagement with governments across Europe. I’ve been with Amazon for almost 4 years and previously was a small business owner.

The efforts that Stefano has described are part of our commitment to being a responsible employer that creates quality jobs and keeps our employees safe. To bring this to life I would like to extend a personal invitation for you to visit our facilities in Europe.

More than 180,000 people have visited our sites in the EU since we began offering public tours in 2019. In 2025 alone, we hosted almost 2,000 policymakers at different sites across the EU. This included many Members of the European Parliament.

We’ve spoken about our investments in Europe, in our workforce, and in safety. But how do those investments help people and communities across the EU?

Firstly, they create significant economic impact in rural and post-industrial regions. Our fulfilment centre near Metz, in north-eastern France, employs more than 4,000 people, 60% of whom were formerly long-term job seekers. Similarly, our Spanish sites in Illescas, La Sagra reduced local and regional unemployment significantly, with youth unemployment—a key priority for local governments—dropping by almost 50%.

Secondly, we're supporting women in the workforce in many different ways. Across Europe, our Women’s Leadership Programme (WLP) equips female managers with essential skills to support their career development. And in Italy, women now make up over 34% of our logistics workforce, compared to 21% in the logistics industry overall.

Finally, we are using our regional and global logistics network and our European workforce to help address natural disasters in the region. Last year, we opened our first permanent Disaster Relief Hub in Europe, near Düsseldorf, and have already activated it to respond to the terrible floods in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Valencia region.

Amazon has also committed over $75 million to support Ukraine through financial aid, technology resources, and more than 2 million donated items. As an example of one technology-related initiative, we launched the AWS IT Skills 4U programme in 2022, and by 2023 we had trained more than 10,000 Ukrainian participants in cloud skills. These are just some of the many ways we are leveraging our facilities, our people, and our technology to help communities and people in need across the EU, and beyond.

I will now hand you back to David Zapolsky.

Closing remarks

Before we close, I want to acknowledge that Amazon has announced workforce reductions today that will affect some of our teams globally.

These are corporate workforce reductions and will have a minimal effect on our field operations teams in Europe.

These are always difficult decisions that impact real people and their families, and we don't take them lightly.

We’re committed to supporting affected employees through this transition with severance packages, career services, and other benefits that, in many instances, go beyond what we are legally required to provide.

Although this is separate from what we are discussing today, I did want to raise it and reassure you that our commitment to providing safe, quality jobs and being a responsible employer in Europe remains unchanged. As I mentioned earlier, we have more than 150,000 employees who live and work in the EU.

Our €225 billion investment since 2010 reflects our ongoing efforts to provide quality jobs that offer competitive pay, excellent benefits, and meaningful opportunities for career growth.

As Stefano said, we strive to set industry-leading workplace standards, and safety remains our absolute priority, with measurable improvements year after year.

We are committed to being a responsible corporate citizen that delivers value to our customers, employees, partners, and communities.