Amazon announces expansion plan in Spain that will create 1,000 new jobs

Online retailer Amazon announced on Wednesday that it hopes to create some 1,000 new jobs in Spain over the next three years as part of an expansion that will include a new distribution center in Barcelona, company officials said.

Amazon’s logistical center in San Fernando de Henares, outside of Madrid, will be enlarged from 32,000 square meters to 75,000 square meters. Since it opened in Spain in 2011, the company has hired about 400 employees.

The 28,000-square-meter San Fernando distribution center opened with 40 employees in 2012

Job recruitment will begin at the start of next year, with average starting monthly salaries at €1,422 gross.

A more than 7% raise is expected to be given after six months, when employees qualify for a fixed bonus. This would bring salaries up to €1,599 gross, which is 111% higher than the minimum, according to an Amazon statement.

The new installations will be equipped with advanced technology to store, pick, package and send millions of products to customers in Spain and across Europe.

“We are very satisfied that we can continue investing and creating jobs in Spain so that Amazon customers can receive their order much quicker and enjoy an unimaginable experience when it comes to shopping,” said Amazon España operations director Fred Pattje in the statement.

Madrid regional premier Cristina Cifuentes, of the Popular Party (PP), called Amazon’s expansion “a positive step” for the San Fernando de Henares corridor, which is linked to the Spanish capital.

The 28,000-square-meter San Fernando distribution center opened with 40 employees in 2012, a year after the Amazon.es website was launched.

Currently, more than 86 million products are offered online, including books, clothes, electronics, household supplies, food and drugstore products, as well as other merchandise that are sold to small businesses. In October, it launched a supermarket delivery service.

Amazon announced that it wants to build another logistics center in El Prat de Llobregat, outside Barcelona, and has offered €30 million to the Catalan Land Institute (Incasòl) for a tract of land that will go up for auction, sources told EFE news agency. At the same time, the US-based company is also looking at other land tracts near the area.

Amazon has its corporate offices in Madrid where 300 employees work. It selected Madrid as its only center outside the United States to develop software products and the company is in the process of hiring 30 engineers.

English version by Martin Delfín.