Amazon to offer more than 1,000 apprenticeships in Britain

[LONDON] Online retailer Amazon will create more than 1,000 apprenticeship roles in Britain over the next two years, it said on Tuesday, indicating the country's imminent departure from the European Union is not deterring it from investing.

With only 31 days until Britain is due to quit the world's biggest trading bloc, UK lawmakers are deeply divided over how, or even whether, the country should leave.

British retailers' investment plans are the lowest in seven years ahead of Brexit, and job cuts in the sector have gathered pace, according to a survey from the Confederation of British Industry, published on Friday.

Amazon said the new apprentices would add to more than 27,500 permanent employees currently in Britain.

Last June, the group said it was committed to the country. It added more than 2,500 permanent jobs in Britain in 2018.

Once qualified, the apprentices will work across Amazon's UK corporate and operations sites, including its UK head office in London and three development centres in Edinburgh, Cambridge in eastern England and in the capital where teams work on innovations including Alexa, machine learning, Prime Video, Prime Air and Amazon's advanced distribution centres.

REUTERS