Amazon to add 500 jobs in Middletown

Amazon is hiring more than 500 new full-time workers at its Middletown fulfillment center this month, a move that will put the facility's total employment at about 2,500.

"The growth is really driven by customer demand," Amazon spokesman Aaron Toso said. "But we've also found that doing business in Delaware has been great and we've found a lot of great talent in Middletown."

The $12-an-hour jobs being added at the Middletown Fulfillment Center include positions that receive inventory, as well as pick, pack and ship customers' orders. Those hired will receive medical and other employee benefits immediately, Toso said.

"I was thrilled when they reached 1,500," Middletown Mayor Kenneth Branner said. "This is even better. It means more jobs for residents and a big boost to the economy."

The new jobs at the Middletown facility are among the 6,000 total new positions the e-commerce giant is filling at 19 of its 50 fulfillment centers throughout the country.

With this month's round of new hires, Amazon will have added 1,000 new full-time jobs at its Middletown Fulfillment Center in the last year. Another 500 jobs were added last summer.

"It's nice to know we're heading in the right direction by adding jobs, not only to our state economy but also to our local economy in Middletown," said state Sen. Bethany Hall Long (D-Middletown). "That growth also has a trickle-down effect that brings extra business to our gas pumps and our local restaurants so this is a good day for the whole community."

The new hires being added this month mean Amazon's total full-time workforce at the Middletown Fulfillment Center now will be greater than the total population of nearby Townsend and Odessa, combined.

And that doesn't include the more than 3,500 seasonal employees who are hired to work six-week stretches at the Middletown facility during the peak holiday season. During those weeks, the size of Amazon's workforce is so large that the company pays the Middletown Police Department more than $50,000 a year to direct employee traffic in and out of the facility during shift changes.

Town spokeswoman Kristen Krenzer said Middletown is currently working to produce maps for Amazon employees in the hopes of directing them to the facility without using Main Street, the two-lane thoroughfare.

"A lot of their holiday season employees come from out of town and only know how to get to the fulfillment center using Main Street," she said. "Our goal is to make their trip to and from work a little easier."

Amazon has two fulfillment centers in Delaware. The other, in New Castle, opened in 1997 and currently employs less than 1,000.

Toso said there are no plans to add any new positions at that facility.

"It's a different kind of building," he said. "Right now, it just makes more sense to add more full-time associates in Middletown."

The 1.2-million-square-foot Middletown Fulfillment Center at 560 Merrimac Avenue opened in 2012 with the help of $3.5 million in state incentives.

Those grants required the company to hire 850 employees within its first year of operation, a goal Amazon more than doubled by its one-year anniversary.

Middletown also agreed to exempt Amazon from about $1 million in municipal real estate taxes through 2022, as part of the deal that brought the e-commerce giant to southern New Castle County.

"They are going above and beyond the promise they made when they decided to build in Middletown," Branner said Tuesday.

Since then, the Middletown Fulfillment Center has become one of only six in the nation that hosts public tours twice a month.

The facility also was the site of a rare union bid by Amazon employees in 2014. A group of 30 equipment maintenance and repair technicians became the first Amazon employees in the U.S. to vote on whether to form a collective bargaining unit. The employees defeated the measure by a 21-6 vote, with three workers refusing to cast ballots.

Applicants for the jobs being offered at the Middletown facility can apply online at www.amazonfulfillmentcareers.com.

The Seattle-based company is also inviting job candidates to apply in person at the Middletown facility Wednesday and June 17. In-person applications will be accepted between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

"People will be able to walk in with proof of a high school diploma or GED and walk out with a great job at Amazon," Toso said.

Job applicants must be at least 18 years old, capable of standing or walking for up to 12 hours and able to lift up to 49 pounds, as well as climb and descend stairs, among other requirements.

Contact Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.