Aside from the high-profile fight for Amazon’s HQ2, cities across the U.S. have quietly been battling for Amazon Fulfillment centers, where Amazon Prime products are packaged and shipped. The firm often gets millions in tax breaks, and the city, theoretically, gets thousands of new jobs.
But a new analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, titled “Unfulfilled promises,” indicates the tech giant’s fulfillment centers may not be all they’re cracked up to be; in cities where such centers were built, overall employment at the county (parish) level remained unchanged, despite an uptick in warehousing jobs.
The new jobs created by Amazon at these fulfillment centers may have merely siphoned workers at that wage level from retail or service jobs, ultimately creating little or no real new jobs, CityLab reports. Another possibility is these highly-desired warehouses aren’t big enough to make a difference in employment levels.
And while higher wages is often associated with Amazon warehouses, the study finds wages of warehouse workers remained unchanged after Amazon came to town.
Ultimately, CityLab writes, Amazon needs to build a host of fulfillment centers all over the country; its business model depends on it. That means the economic development incentives offered up to the firm may be unnecessary.
