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Thousands of prospective job applicants lined up in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday for “Amazon Career Day.” The retail giant (AMZN) set up job fairs in six major cities; Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, Seattle, and Arlington, in an effort to create buzz and fill 30,000 full and part-time jobs available at Amazon locations across the country.
“30,000 is a big number, but Amazon needs a lot of people,” Santosh Rao, Head of Research at Manhattan Venture Partners, told Yahoo Finance’s The Ticker this week.
Amazon has more than 650,000 employees worldwide, with the number likely to rise. This spring, Amazon posted the first job openings for its Northern Virginia location. The company aims to fill 400 positions there by the end of the year, with 25,000 people expected to be employed in the next 12 years.
“They’re going all out, being proactive, preemptive you could say, ahead of the holiday season,” Rao said. “But more than that, to establish their business in the new verticals.”
Amazon has expressed interest in a variety of workers, from software engineers, who can earn upwards of a six-figure salary, to warehouse and delivery staffers, who would be paid a minimum of $15 an hour, the company’s new minimum wage.
Amazon’s push to expand its delivery forces comes on the heels of FedEx (FDX) ending its express shipping service with the digital giant.
“They want to make one-day shipping standard for Prime customers. Right now it’s only for a few products but now they want to make it across the board to compete with FedEx, and the others who have already announced that.”
Still, Rao refers to Amazon as the “incumbent leader” in the online space, stating that “Amazon is well positioned.”
“That’s the company to beat, so everyone has realized that. All of the main line retail stores also have online operations now. They’re all coming into this business, they want to deliver fast.”
Expansion is top of mind for the company, but there is also another factor that could put a wrench in Amazon’s future success.
“The only problem would be lack of man-power, because they can deliver a lot. They have an excellent infrastructure right now,” Rao said.
Sarah Smith is a Segment Producer/Booker at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @sarahasmith
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