ADVERTISEMENT

Amazon To Create One Million Jobs In India By 2025: Jeff Bezos

These jobs are in addition to the 7 lakh jobs Amazon’s investments have enabled in India over the last six years, Jeff Bezos says.

Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Amazon.com Inc. has announced plans to create one million new jobs in India over the next five years, a day after Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal scoffed at its fresh $1 billion investment in the country.

In a statement on Friday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the e-commerce firm plans to create one million new jobs in India over the next five years. The new jobs—created both directly and indirectly—will be across industries, including IT, skill development, content creation, retail, logistics, and manufacturing.

These jobs are in addition to the seven lakh jobs Amazon's India investments have enabled over the last six years in the country.

The statement comes a day after Goyal said the U.S.-based company was not doing a favour to the country by investing here, and questioned how the retail major could incur such "big" losses but for its predatory pricing.

On Wednesday, the second day of Bezos’ ongoing India visit, Amazon announced fresh investment of $1 billion to help bring online small and medium businesses and committed to exporting $10 billion worth of India-made goods by 2025.

"We've seen huge contributions from our employees, extraordinary creativity from the small businesses we've partnered with, and great enthusiasm from the customers who shop with us—and we're excited about what lies ahead," Bezos said in the statement on Friday.

Amazon said the Indian government has prioritised job creation and skilling initiatives—including training of more than 400 million people by 2022—in rural and urban areas.

"Amazon's job creation commitment and investment in traders and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) complement these social inclusion and social mobility efforts by creating more opportunities for people in India to find employment, build skills, and expand entrepreneurship opportunities," the statement added.

The company's new investments will help hiring talent to fill roles across the company in India, including software engineering, cloud computing, content creation, and customer support, it said.

Since 2014, Amazon has grown by more than four times its employee base in India. Last year, it inaugurated its Hyderabad campus—the company’s first fully-owned campus outside the U.S and the largest globally.

It has so far invested $5.5 billion in its largest overseas market.

Also Read: Inside Amazon’s Largest Office, Thousands Of Miles From Seattle

The investments, Amazon said, will also help in expanding growth opportunities for the more than 5.5 lakh traders and MSMEs, including local shops, through programmes like ‘Saheli’, ‘Karigar’, and ‘I Have Space’.

In a post covering the entire home page of Amazon India’s mobile app and desktop website, Bezos said more than 60,000 businesses are exporting 'Make in India' products globally with cumulative exports exceeding $1 billion.

"I fall more in love with India every time I return here. The boundless energy, innovation, and the grit of the Indian people always inspire me," he wrote.

Bezos' India visit has been marked by Competition Commission of India initiating a formal investigation into alleged deep discounts by online retail firms, preferential listing and exclusionary tactics adopted by Amazon and Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart.

Many store owners, led by traders' body Confederation of All India Traders, had also organised protests in 300 cities against online retailers alleging that they were in violation of India’s foreign direct investment rules.

Last year, the government had tightened FDI norms for e-commerce marketplaces. These rules barred such platforms from offering products of sellers in which they hold a stake and banned exclusive marketing arrangements, among other clauses. Following this, Amazon restructured its joint ventures to ensure compliance.

Also Read: E-Commerce FDI Policy: Bored Game

The government has asserted that e-commerce companies have to follow Indian rules in letter and spirit and not find loopholes to make a back-door entry into multi-brand retail segment.