Eastvale, CA – Local officials and area leaders were the first community members to see inside Amazon’s new fulfillment center in Eastvale, California on Friday, May 17th. Together they celebrated with a grand opening ceremony, followed by a special tour of the Amazon Robotics facility, which opened in March of 2018.
Attendees had the unique opportunity to view the innovative technologies and processes that more than 3,000 full-time associates use, on a daily basis, to pick, pack, and ship customer orders. This one million square-foot facility is equipped with hundreds of robots that work alongside associates and make their jobs more efficient and exciting.
Dr. John Husing, chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, discussed Eastvale’s robots enhance the fulfillment center, allowing for continued job growth in the Inland Empire.
“One of the issues everyone is talking about is: where will the jobs be? Well this is a very technologically oriented facility, and there are more than 3,000 employees working in this city,” said Dr. John Husing.
There are hundreds of robots in use in the Amazon facility. Each one weighs 320 lbs. and can lift as much as 750 lbs. as they navigate the floor at 5 feet per second. Amazon robots travel to various locations in the fulfillment center to pick up mobile shelves of products and deliver them to employees who are working at ergonomic workstations. When the robots arrive, the employees pick items off the shelves, moving them on to be packed and shipped to customers.
Amazon has created more than 39,000 jobs in California and now is the largest employer in the Inland Empire, passing the Loma Linda Medical Center in 2018.
“As you all know, we had an enormous recession that took away over 10% of the jobs in the Inland Empire. We have subsequently added back almost 380,000 jobs, so that we sit today almost 16% higher than we were back in 2007. One sector truly powered this, and that was logistics, warehousing, distribution, and trucking. The whole logistics group, without it, we would not have gotten out of the recession,” stated Husing.
Community members attending the event included the Eastvale Chamber of Commerce. President of the chamber, Hari Dhiman, presented Amazon with a Certificate of Recognition for its positive impacts on local economy and employment.
“The outpouring of support and enthusiasm to welcome Amazon in Eastvale has been overwhelmingly great,” said General Manager Michelle Mulcahy. “Amazon is committed to long-term investment in the Eastvale area, and we have created hundreds of local jobs with construction companies and already partner with 338,000 small and medium-sized businesses, authors and developers based in California. It’s a treat to open our doors today and host many of the people who have been champions for Amazon since day one.”
In addition to competitive wages, starting at $15/hr. minimum, full‐time Amazon employees receive industry-leading benefits starting on day one including comprehensive insurance covering medical, vision, and dental, a retirement savings plan, and generous paid parental leave of up to 20 weeks along with a flexible Ramp Back Program and Leave Share Program that allows employees the ability to share their paid leave with their spouse or partner. Additionally, Amazon offers hourly employees innovative programs like Career Choice, where the company will pre-pay 95 percent of tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Since the program’s launch, employees are pursuing degrees in game design and visual communications, nursing, IT programming, and radiology, to name a few.
