As it embarks on nationwide hiring spree, Amazon opens huge shipping facility in Austin area
Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. has officially opened its 3.8-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Pflugerville as it continues to expand across the Austin metro.
Though the opening date was originally targeted for August, Amazon spokesperson Daniel Martin told Austin Business Journal that the company opened the new facility Oct. 17. Roughly 1,000 positions are expected at the fulfillment center — mostly in picking, packing and shipping — where employees will work alongside automated machines to ship items to Amazon's distribution centers throughout the country.
The new facility represents a large piece of Amazon's (Nasdaq: AMZN) expansion plans as it becomes one of the largest employers in the region. As of August, Amazon had more than 11,000 direct employees in the Austin area, without taking into account the 1,000 jobs expected from the new facility.
"Right now we have over 600 employees at the Pflugerville facility and we’ll continue to hire and onboard new employees over the next several weeks and months as operations continue to ramp up," Martin said in a statement.
The fulfillment facility, located northeast of Austin on a 94-acre site off of the State Highway 130 toll road, was previously known as Project Charm when the company negotiated incentives with the Pflugerville Community Development Corp. for transportation improvements. The PCDC agreed to fund up to $3.8 million for the improvements and in return Amazon committed to invest $250 million for a minimum 820,000-square-foot facility and provide at least 1,000 full-time jobs over a decade
Separate from the Pflugerville facility, Amazon also plans to hire another 3,000 people in Austin over the coming months for seasonal work, Martin said in a statement. That's part of the 150,000 seasonal jobs the company plans to fill nationwide, according to an Oct. 18 announcement.
The company's jobs, including seasonal roles, have an average starting pay of $18 per hour, according to the announcement, plus sign-on bonuses. Full-time roles are eligible for benefits including paid leave, health insurance and 401(k).
Amazon also plans to open its fifth local delivery station in the first half of 2022 in far Northeast Austin, which will support 200 jobs, according to past ABJ reporting. Meanwhile, Amazon has a 1-million-square-foot delivery station in the works in San Marcos, which is also expected to create 200-plus jobs. Since 2015, Amazon's local investment has eclipsed $5.5 billion, according to past ABJ reporting.
The local jobs Amazon has pledged through its new facilities also contributes to the metro's growing tally of jobs announced from corporate relocations and expansions. Companies relocating to or expanding in the Austin metro pledged to create more than 20,000 jobs during the first nine months of 2021, nearly equaling the record number of jobs pledged all of last year.
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October 20, 2021
Amazon, Inc.