Amazon Investing More Than $700 Million in Employee Training

Amazon has pledged to upskill 100,000 of its employees across the United States, dedicating over $700 million to provide employees across its corporate offices, tech hubs, fulfillment centers, retail stores, and transportation network with access to training programs that will help them move into more highly skilled roles both within and outside of Amazon.

Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 pledge invests in a range of new programs to serve employees from all backgrounds and Amazon locations. Programs include:

• Amazon Technical Academy,a training and job placement program that equips non-technical Amazon employees with the essential skills to transition into, and thrive in, software engineering careers. Combining instructor-led, project-based learning with real-world application, graduates of the program master the most widely used software engineering practices and tools required to thrive into a career at Amazon.
• Associate2Tech,providing fulfillment center associates the opportunity to move into technical roles, regardless of their previous IT experience, within Amazon’s vast operations network. This fully-paid 90-day program is designed to place associates in on-the-job training for IT support technician roles and pays for their A+ certification test.
• Machine Learning University (MLU) helps Amazon workers with a background in technology and coding gain skills in machine learning.  MLU helps employees learn core skills to propel their career growth – skills that are often taught only in higher education.
• Growing Career Choice, Amazon’s pre-paid tuition program for fulfillment center associates looking to move into high-demand occupations. Amazon will pay up to 95% of tuition and fees towards a certificate or diploma in qualified fields of study, leading to in-demand jobs. Since launching Career Choice in 2012, over 25,000 employees have received training for high-demand occupations including aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, and nursing.
• Amazon Apprenticeship, the Department of Labor certified program offers paid intensive classroom training and on-the-job apprenticeships with Amazon. Providing a combination of immersive learning and on-the-job training, the program has created paths to technical jobs for hundreds of candidates to break into careers including cloud support associate, data technician and software development engineer.
• AWS Training and Certification to close the cloud skills gap in the industry. Amazon employees have access to free classroom and digital training to build cloud knowledge, and discounted AWS certification exams to validate cloud expertise.

“Through our continued investment in local communities in more than 40 states across the country, we have created tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S. in the past year alone,” said Beth Galetti, senior vice president, HR. “For us, creating these opportunities is just the beginning. While many of our employees want to build their careers here, for others it might be a stepping stone to different aspirations. We think it’s important to invest in our employees, and to help them gain new skills and create more professional options for themselves.”

The upskilling programs are built by Amazon employees, around insights provided by Amazon’s fast-growing workforce – which will reach 300,000 employees in the U.S. this year – and experts in the changing jobs landscape. Based on a review of the company’s jobs and analysis of hiring data from its U.S. workforce, Amazon’s fastest growing highly skilled jobs over the last five years are data mapping specialist (832% growth), data scientist (505%), solutions architect (454%), security engineer (229%) and business analyst (160%). 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.

“The future of work is now and the challenge is not just adapting to new technologies, but adapting to the dynamism of the economy, which will only accelerate,” said Jason Tyszko, VP, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. “Amazon is demonstrating the new role employers must play to counter that challenge, fostering a new relationship with workers where maintaining and growing their skills is an imperative for business success.”

This pledge furthers Amazon’s commitment to supporting its employees. Last year, Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 for all U.S. employees, adding to its suite of benefits offered by the company, including comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental and vision coverage), up to 20 weeks of paid parental leave, 401(k) matching, and more.