Amazon to hire 5,000 work-from-home customer service jobs

amazon box — Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. Reuters/Mike Segar

Amazon has been planning to create 5,000 virtual customer service jobs that would allow them to work anywhere. The retailers' vice president for worldwide customer service Tom Weiland said that the jobs the company offered would meet the demands of people who wanted or needed a flexible job.

Weiland said that the company was happy to empower the talented people including the military spouse, college student or parent no matter where they lived. The company said that the part-time virtual customer service and fulfillment center workers who worked more than 20 hours a week were qualified for life, disability, dental and vision insurance and funding towards medical insurance.

The giant retailer would also open 30,000 part-time jobs that would be available in the US. The new roles would boost the company's part-time ranks by roughly 75 percent. The jobs available would be in the retailer's warehouses and distribution centres. Based on the jobs posted, the jobs would open on the warehouses located in Chicago, Mundelein, Morton Grove and Lisle.

There was no final announcement on how many jobs would open in the Illinois warehouse but the company announced in January that it would need more than 7,000 full-time workers. The company avoided opening physical facilities in the state due to sales taxes. Since it opened a facility in the state, the company has already expanded its facilities in Joliet, Edwardsville and Romeoville. The company planned to open in Waukegan, Monee and Aurora. Local officials said that they were happy for the opening of the Joliet and Romeoville fulfillment centres.

In January, the retailer announced that it planned to create more than 100,000 new full-time jobs in the US. However, most of the jobs to be created would not fill its Seattle nor its Silicon Valley headquarters. The company aimed to meet US President Donald Trump's vision that their jobs and production should be offered within the country.

It is perceived that the company would need more workers as the business expands its shipping coverage in the coming years. In January, the company ranked 19th on a list of businesses based in the US by total global employees. Wal-Mart ranked first with two million employees worldwide.

Amazon's ambitious plans for hiring was not the first move of a tech company. Alibaba's co-founder Jack Ma has visited Trump to inform that its e-commerce platform would create one million jobs for the American workforce. Japan's Softbank also pledged that it would invest US$50 billion (AU$66 billion) in the US.