Amazon Is Hiring? What To Know About The Company's Plan To Create 30,000 New US Jobs

E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) is set to hire 30,000 new full and part-time employees across the U.S. by early 2020, with the company holding job fairs in six cities next week. It is the highest number of job openings at one time in the company's history.

"Amazon has created more than 300,000 new jobs in the U.S. over the last decade – and we're proud to continue investing and creating opportunities for people across the country," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Monday in a company blog post. "These are jobs with highly competitive compensation and full-benefits from day one, as well as training opportunities to new skills in high-demand fields such as robotics and machine learning."

In a statement to the Associated Press, Bezos encouraged "anyone willing to think big and move fast to apply for a job with us," and added that prospective employees will "get to invent and see Amazon making even bolder bets on behalf of our customers."

The job fairs will take place on Sept. 17 in Arlington, Virginia; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Seattle. The jobs will pay at least $15 an hour and full-time positions will include benefits, such as health insurance, 401k matching and paid parental leave.

Some jobs at the company, such as software engineers, can pay over $100,000 a year.

The relative strength of the economy has prompted Amazon to make extra efforts to hire employees. Amazon recently announced that the company will spend $700 million training 100,000 employees for higher-skilled jobs in fields such as artificial intelligence or software development.

Amazon also needs more workers to handle the consumer demand of the holiday season, and to support its ever-expanding logistics and distribution network. The company is opening up new locations across the country, from Ohio to Nevada, and also opening up a second headquarters in Arlington, which will employ about 40,000 employees.

Amazon has also come under fire for its perceived stressful working conditions and low pay, with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York saying the company pays its workers "starvation wages." Amazon employees have told media outlets that working in warehouses often requires long hours and constant surveillance by management.

Amazon is the largest e-retailer in the U.S., employing over 600,000 employees, according to figures from October 2018. The company is currently looking at drones to carry out autonomous deliveries.