DARLINGTON, England—Many traders in this old market town hold
com Inc. partially to blame for the closures of a raft of local shops in recent years.
Then, Amazon opened a warehouse here.
The facility, which opened in early 2020, employs 1,300 full-time staff, making it one of the town’s biggest employers. It hired 500 additional seasonal workers during the end-of-year holidays. Wages start at £10 (equivalent to $13.25) an hour, above the legal minimum, and benefits include private healthcare and an £8,000 education allowance available in installments over four years.
The new jobs have all delivered an economic boost for the Northern England town of 100,000, while sparking a reassessment of the U.S. e-commerce giant. Nicola Reading, a gift-shop owner, still blames Amazon for the demise of the local retail scene but now sees an upside, too.
“It feels like Amazon employs half the population of Darlington now,” she said.
Already America’s second-biggest employer, after
Walmart Inc.,
Amazon has been advancing in Europe and the U.K., investing €78 billion ($89 billion) since 2010 in a continentwide expansion that has significantly accelerated over the past few years. Amazon employs over 55,000 full-time U.K. staff.
That investment push has triggered a softening of attitudes toward the e-commerce giant in locales where the company has invested, Amazon executives and government officials say.
Long-held concerns about Amazon’s dominance haven’t gone away in Darlington, said Peter Gibson, the town’s representative in Parliament. But the town is better off with the Amazon warehouse, he said: “Do I want to see more jobs in Darlington? Yes, I do.”
Amazon remains a target for many critics. In late November, independent U.K. retailers organized a Black Friday protest—switching off their websites for a day—to raise awareness over what they say is the dominance of Amazon and big chain retailers. On the same day, activists…
Read More: How a Small Town Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Amazon