Dive Brief:
- Amazon plans to invest $700 million to upskill 100,000 of its employees in the United States by 2025. As part of its "Upskilling 2025" initiative, courses will include software engineering, information technology, Amazon Web Services cloud and machine learning, according to a announcement.
- "Within customer fulfillment, highly skilled roles have increased over 400%, including jobs like logistics coordinator, process improvement manager and transportation specialist within our customer fulfillment network," Amazon said.
- Programs include Associate2Tech, which helps fulfillment center employees to move into technical IT roles regardless of their previous experience, and Machine Learning University.
Dive Insight:
Amazon's upskilling plan adds to a trend of tech companies gearing up to develop, not just recruit, the talent they'll need to execute expansion plans.
In May, Microsoft announced a training program aimed at upskilling 15,000 workers in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2021.
Salesforce tacked its name to the Trump administration's "Pledge to America's Workers," and said it planned to train half a million U.S. workers with help from its free online learning platform, Trailhead.
The programs announced this week to reskill current employees in IT and software engineering will also benefit Amazon, allowing the company to gain technical talent without having to fight over the very small pool of qualified workers.
In its release, Amazon points to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that highlight this problem: "There are now more job openings (7.4 million) than there are unemployed Americans (6 million)."
