Amazon today announced that a new fulfillment center in Frankenthal, Rheinland-Pfalz, will open in late 2017, creating more than 1,000 new permanent jobs in the region in the first year. The fulfillment center will cover approximately 50,000 square meters. 1,200 parking spaces for employees will be created in an extra parking lot. With the investment of 80 million euros in Frankenthal, Amazon is increasing the size of its German fulfillment center network to meet increasing customer demand, expand its product selection and support a growing number of independent small businesses selling on Amazon Marketplace using Fulfillment by Amazon warehousing and delivery.
"We are excited to announce that in 2017 we will be opening a new fulfillment center in Germany in Frankenthal. We are delighted to be creating more than 1,000 new permanent full-time jobs in the area, all with competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on day one,” said Roy Perticucci, VP Europe Customer Fulfillment. “This new facility will be integrated into the Amazon network which includes 31 fulfillment centers in seven European countries that allow us to fulfill our commitment to fast and reliable deliveries for our German and European customers. We are convinced this investment will benefit both customers and the local economy, generating new jobs and providing small and medium-sized German businesses who use our Marketplace service with an opportunity to reach millions of customers across Europe."
"We welcome Amazon in Frankenthal. With the creation of new industrial zones in the past years we have become an excellent location for businesses“, says Martin Hebich, Mayor of the City of Frankenthal (Pfalz).“With the settlement of a fulfilment center of this size, the city is looking forward to the creation of a wide variety of permanent jobs on many different levels. This is strengthening Frankenthal’s position as a mid-size center – it’s a win for the region as a whole.“
Amazon will begin recruiting for a range of positions for the Frankenthal fulfillment center, from operations managers to engineers, HR and IT roles to people who will handle customer orders.
Amazon offers competitive salaries for all employees. Wages for logistics employees are at the upper end of the pay common in similar jobs. The hourly base pay at all German locations for these employees amounts to a minimum of 10.30 euros gross. Seasonal workers earn the same base pay as permanent employees. After two years of service, permanent employees earn an average of 2,483 euros gross per month, including monthly bonuses, an additional bonus payment during the holiday season as well as restricted stock units.
For the past two years, Amazon has been offering its employees in Germany the opportunity to acquire new qualifications besides their work. Employees may choose their individual subjects from an expansive catalog of courses; the qualifications don’t need to be relevant for their work within the fulfillment center. As part of the “Career Choice” program, Amazon pays 95 percent of all training and education fees, up to an amount of 8,000 euros in total for a duration of four years.
In addition, Amazon offers benefits such as a company pension fund, life and occupational disability insurances as well as employee discounts. All German fulfillment centers have a canteen which offers healthy and inexpensive meals, subsidized by Amazon.
Amazon currently has nine fulfillment centers in Germany which are part of the European fulfillment network. Amazon has created more than 13,000 permanent jobs in Germany, 11,000 of which in fulfillment centers. In the last 12 months alone, Amazon converted 1,000 limited contracts into permanent jobs. Many thousand indirect jobs have been created in addition to that: Sellers on the Amazon Marketplace, for instance, have created approximately 90,000 jobs in Germany alone. Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than 15 billion euros in Europe, e.g. in infrastructure and facilities for fulfillment and customer service centers, Amazon Web Services datacenter regions and research and development
