Amazon.com to add 2,000 jobs in France

AMAZON.COM, Inc. will create 2,000 permanent jobs this year with an eye to the strengthening French economy.

Amazon, which already added 1,500 jobs in France last year, is seeking workers to staff its distribution centers and sorting centers. Further jobs will be created in delivery services. The expansion will increase the retailer’s French work force by more than a third and bring its total number of employees to more than 7,500 by the end of 2018.

“The French economic context gives us confidence and encourages us to invest,” Frederic Duval, head of Amazon France, said in an interview. “We have more customers, so more business, and as we have more business, we hire more. We think this level activity is sustainable, thus we’re hiring people with permanent contracts.”

The plans are the latest sign that France’s long-awaited economic recovery is starting to generate jobs. France’s unemployment rate fell to 8.9% in the fourth quarter, its lowest in almost nine years, national statistics office Insee said Thursday.

Duval said there is “absolutely” no link between the job creation and a settlement reached this month with French tax authorities. “That problem is now settled and we no longer have any dispute with the state in this matter,” he said.

Amazon has invested more than €2 billion ($2.48 billion) in France since 2010. — Bloomberg