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Amazon Says It Will Hire More Than 5,000 Workers In U.S.

Amazon.com plans to hire more than 5,000 full-time workers for its warehouse and order-fulfillment centers, the retailing giant said Monday. Many of the jobs will be at Amazon outposts that are spread across more than 10 states.

"Median pay inside Amazon fulfillment centers is 30 percent higher than that of people who work in traditional retail stores," the company said in a news release announcing its plans.

The hiring announcement comes one day before President Obama is scheduled to visit an Amazon facility in Tennessee, The Associated Press reports. The news agency also says Amazon is looking to fill an additional 2,000 jobs that are either seasonal, part-time or in customer service.

The news comes days after the retailer posted "an unexpected second-quarter loss Thursday of about $7 million," as the Two-Way's resident book-world expert, Annalisa Quinn, wrote last week.

But that loss came with a 22 percent rise in revenue, to $15.7 billion. Releasing those results, the company stated that it is focused on the long game, building warehouses and streaming video.

Amazon's fulfillment network currently employs more than 20,000 people full time, the company says.

Here's a list of the towns where Amazon says it'll be hiring:

• Chattanooga, Tenn.

• Murfreesboro, Tenn.

• Charleston, S.C.

• Spartanburg, S.C.

• Middletown, Del.

• Chester, Va.

• Phoenix

• Coppell, Texas

• San Antonio

• Haslet, Texas

• Patterson, Calif.

• Tracy, Calif.

• San Bernardino, Calif.

• Indianapolis

• Jeffersonville, Ind.

• Hebron, Ky.

• Breinigsville, Pa.

Other jobs are also available in Oregon and Washington state, the AP says.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Bill Chappell is a writer and editor on the News Desk in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.

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