The corporate was purported to progressively add 25,000 new jobs at HQ2 by the top of the last decade, in response to its settlement with the commonwealth, together with greater than 2,500 new jobs final yr. As a substitute, it misplaced greater than 200 present positions in Arlington in 2023. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Put up.)
“Final yr we made the powerful determination to remove a small proportion of company roles and to gradual hiring across the globe, which impacted our forecast development in HQ2,” Holly Sullivan, the corporate’s vp of worldwide financial growth, mentioned in a press release Monday night.
Sullivan mentioned the corporate has not deserted its goal of 25,000 jobs. She referred to as the challenge “a long-term funding” and famous that there are 1,000 open positions at HQ2, the place two hovering workplace towers — a part of a complete $2 billion funding — opened final yr.
However amid a shift in work habits prompted by the coronavirus pandemic and a squeeze within the tech trade, the downturn in hiring marks one other setback within the increase Amazon had initially promised to the realm. At the same time as its contractor started putting in utilities final month on an empty plot of land at HQ2, building on one other three workplace buildings and futuristic “Helix” purported to go there has been on pause for greater than a yr.
To obtain subsidies from the state, Amazon should submit a doc to the commonwealth each spring detailing its whole hiring progress at HQ2 since 2019.
Its utility final April mentioned the corporate had employed 6,939 staff for qualifying jobs, out of 8,000 whole positions in Arlington. Amazon’s report this yr mentioned it had crammed 6,644 qualifying jobs and had 7,791 whole staff assigned to HQ2.
Virginia’s incentives for the corporate are purported to reward its progress towards a aim of bringing 25,000 new jobs to Arlington by 2030. They’re additionally structured to make sure that the corporate maintains these new jobs for no less than 5 years.
State officers can pay the corporate $22,000 for every full-time job with a median wage of $150,000, in response to the contract. (That wage is meant to climb barely annually; it was $159,205 final yr.)
Amazon’s utility final yr requested the state for practically $153 million in taxpayer subsidies to be paid by late 2026. The hiring stoop mirrored in the newest report most likely implies that Virginia’s payout might drop by a number of million {dollars} if hiring stays flat within the subsequent yr and a half.
As a result of the corporate submitted a “progress report” this yr as a substitute of a proper utility, Virginia will most likely not pay Amazon any incentives in 2027. The corporate had additionally declined to use for incentives from the commonwealth till 2021, citing pandemic-related challenges, although it had persistently been forward of schedule on hiring at HQ2.
This yr’s report marks the primary time that Amazon has fallen behind on its hiring targets in Arlington.
This story is creating and can be up to date.
