World’s largest online shopping platform Amazon has announced plans to create one million new jobs in India over the next five years as it firefights comments from Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on the firm not doing a favour to the country by making the investments.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, in a statement , said the company plans to create one million new jobs in India over the next five years.
The new jobs – created both directly and indirectly – will be across industries, including IT, skill development, content creation, retail, logistics, and manufacturing.
These jobs are in addition to the seven lakh jobs Amazon’s investments have enabled over the last six years in the country.
Bezos, who is in India this week, had on Wednesday announced $1 billion (over Rs 7,000 crore) investment in the country to help bring small and medium businesses online and committed to exporting $10 billion worth of India-made goods by 2025.
“We’ve seen huge contributions from our employees, extraordinary creativity from the small businesses we’ve partnered with, and great enthusiasm from the customers who shop with us – and we’re excited about what lies ahead,” Bezos said in the statement on Friday.
The company noted that the Indian government has prioritised job creation and skilling initiatives – including the training of more than 400 million people by 2022 – in rural and urban areas.
“Amazon’s job creation commitment and investment in traders and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) complement these social inclusion and social mobility efforts by creating more opportunities for people in India to find employment, build skills, and expand entrepreneurship opportunities,” the statement added.
The statement comes a day after Goyal said the US-based company was not doing a favour to the country through the investments, and questioned how the online retailing major could incur such “big” losses but for its predatory pricing.
The company’s new investments will help hiring talent to fill roles across the company in India, including software development engineering, cloud computing, content creation, and customer support, it said.
