The Amazon fulfilment centre in Baldonnel received a visit recently from Leo Varadkar TD, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, for a behind-the-scenes tour of the new facility. The Tánaiste also unveiled a plaque to mark the opening of the new 630,000 square foot fulfilment centre. During his visit, the Tánaiste who was accompanied by Emer Higgins TD, toured the fulfilment centre in Baldonnell Business Park, met with some of the team working at the site and followed the journey of a parcel to see first-hand what happens when a customer clicks ‘buy’ on the Amazon website.
The centre, which opened in August, is Amazon’s first fulfilment centre in Ireland. It provides faster delivery for customers across the country, including one-day delivery on hundreds of thousands of items. The centre has created 500 new jobs across a wide range of roles, including engineers, HR and IT professionals through to health & safety and finance specialists and operations managers as well as employees who perform the crucial role of picking, packing and shipping customer orders. The fulfilment centre tour, led by General Manager Darragh Kelly, also provided the Tánaiste with an insight into the many career development programmes and opportunities for employees at Amazon, including the Amazon Career Choice programme.
Amazon Career Choice is an innovative programme which pre-pays 95% of tuition for courses in high-demand fields, up to €12,000 over four years, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said: “The opening of Amazon’s first fulfilment centre in Ireland has created 500 new jobs, and is a really important investment in our country. There are jobs available at all level including many high-skilled jobs in engineering and IT among others. This investment indicates a strong commitment to Ireland by Amazon. It was great to meet the enthusiastic team in person and to see at first-hand how orders are fulfilled for customers across the country.”
Amazon Dublin fulfilment centre General Manager Darragh Kelly said: “It was great to welcome Tánaiste Leo Varadkar for a tour of our new fulfilment centre in Dublin. It was a pleasure to introduce him to our fantastic team who process orders for customers in Ireland. I hope the Tánaiste enjoyed his visit and I look forward to welcoming him back to our fulfilment centre in the future.”
Amazon also provides opportunities to improve existing skills or learn new ones through internal career progression opportunities such as cross-training, transferring to a different department and promotion into a managerial role. The team at Amazon’s new Dublin fulfilment centre marked the site’s opening by donating €20,000 to four Irish family support charities. Donations of €5,000 were made to Cliona’s Foundation, Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation, LauraLynn Children’s Hospice and Barretstown by the charity committee at the new Amazon fulfilment centre as part of the company’s community support programme. Anyone can find out more about what it’s like to work at an Amazon fulfilment centre by signing up for a tour at amazonfctours.com.
Pictured: Tanaiste, Leo Varadkar with from left, Darragh Kelly, General Manager Amazon Fulfilment Ireland, Lucy Cronin Amazon Vice President EU Public Policy, Emer Higgins TD and Catherine Slowey IDA. Picture Credit: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
