The head of Amazon UK said it’s “business as usual” when asked about the impact of Brexit in which the UK voted to leave the EU. The BBC reported on Wednesday that Amazon would create an additional 1,000 new permanent jobs across the UK on top of the 2,500 new jobs it had announced earlier this year.
The news report came in response to Amazon UK’s Trends Report released on Wednesday.
While the report had some entertaining factoids about what UK customers have been buying in the first part of the year, it also reiterated Amazon would continue to invest in the UK for the rest of the year.
Amazon UK Country Manager Doug Gurr wrote in the report’s introduction, “We’ve announced plans to open two new fulfilment centres, and are creating thousands of jobs across our head office in London, three UK based research & development centres, customer service centre and our fulfilment operations.”
Amazon now offers over 150 million products, and it has extended its Prime Now one-hour delivery service of 15,000+ items more widely across the UK.
In a section called “Investing in the UK,” Amazon said it had created thousands of new permanent jobs across the UK, and had invested 4.6 billion pounds in the UK economy since 2010. It has three development centers (Cambridge, Edinburgh, and London), and will open two new fulfillment centers in the UK this fall (Manchester, Leicestershire).
There was no mention of Brexit in the report. There was mention of third-party sellers, however. Some excerpts:
“Third party sellers who run their companies on Amazon Marketplace support 74,000 jobs across the UK. We help to level the playing field when it comes to starting a business. An individual selling out of their home has the same opportunity to reach hundreds of millions of Amazon customers across the world as the well-established retailers, many of whom also choose to sell on Amazon Marketplace.”
“We are always looking at ways to help Marketplace sellers grow their businesses. Amazon Lending is a service that helps UK-based Amazon Marketplace sellers do that.”
“Increasingly Amazon Marketplace sellers are looking to access customers outside of their home country. To help support this growth and ambition, in April 2016 Amazon launched a new pan-European Fulfilment programme to help sellers boost exports and successfully grow their business abroad. Marketplace sellers now simply send their inventory to their local fulfilment centre and Amazon will take care of the rest, distributing their products across Europe to ensure fast delivery to customers, no matter where they are.”
The BBC said the newly created jobs Amazon UK plans will bring the total number of full time permanent UK employees to more than 15,500 by the end of the year.
