Amazon associates and partners working in our operations network and data centers are among the many heroes of the COVID-19 crisis. Whether it’s fulfilling orders in one of our fulfillment centers, delivering an order to a customer’s doorstep, or one of the many roles in between, I couldn’t be more proud of the critical role our teams are serving by enabling people to stay safe at home while receiving the products they need. Nothing is more important to us than making sure that we protect the health of our teams, and we’ve been working around the clock since the early days of the outbreak to make changes to our processes and procure the necessary supplies for this. To date, we’ve made over 150 significant process changes to ensure the health and safety of our teams. We’ve shared details on the safety precautions we’ve taken to date on the Day One Blog, and today, I want to give an update.
Temperature checks
Last Sunday, March 29, we began temperature checks at select sites around the U.S. in an effort to ensure that employees and support staff are healthy when they arrive at work. Anyone registering a temperature over the CDC-recommended 100.4F will be asked to return home and only come back to work after they’ve gone three days without a fever. We are now temperature checking more than 100,000 employees per day. The complete rollout of temperature checks across our entire U.S. and European operations network and Whole Foods Market stores is expected by early next week, at which point we will be testing hundreds of thousands of people daily.
Last Sunday, March 29, we began temperature checks at select sites around the U.S. in an effort to ensure that employees and support staff are healthy when they arrive at work. Anyone registering a temperature over the CDC-recommended 100.4F will be asked to return home and only come back to work after they’ve gone three days without a fever. We are now temperature checking more than 100,000 employees per day. The complete rollout of temperature checks across our entire U.S. and European operations network and Whole Foods Market stores is expected by early next week, at which point we will be testing hundreds of thousands of people daily.
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Personal protective equipment
Disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer are already standard across our network, and the procurement teams have worked tirelessly to create new sources of supply to keep these critical items flowing. The millions of masks we ordered weeks ago are now arriving, and we’re distributing them to our teams as quickly as possible. Masks will be available as soon as today in some locations and in all locations by early next week. Any N-95 masks we receive we are either donating to healthcare workers on the front lines or making them available through Amazon Business to healthcare and government organizations at cost.
Disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer are already standard across our network, and the procurement teams have worked tirelessly to create new sources of supply to keep these critical items flowing. The millions of masks we ordered weeks ago are now arriving, and we’re distributing them to our teams as quickly as possible. Masks will be available as soon as today in some locations and in all locations by early next week. Any N-95 masks we receive we are either donating to healthcare workers on the front lines or making them available through Amazon Business to healthcare and government organizations at cost.
Auditing our measures
We’re conducting daily audits of the new health and safety measures we’ve put into place. We’ve shared some of the photos of these measures here. We also assigned some of our top machine learning technologists to capture opportunities to improve social distancing in our buildings using our internal camera systems. With over 1,000 sites around the world, and so many measures and precautions rapidly rolled out over the past several weeks, there may be instances where we don’t get it perfect, but I can assure you that’s just what they’ll be—exceptions.
We’re conducting daily audits of the new health and safety measures we’ve put into place. We’ve shared some of the photos of these measures here. We also assigned some of our top machine learning technologists to capture opportunities to improve social distancing in our buildings using our internal camera systems. With over 1,000 sites around the world, and so many measures and precautions rapidly rolled out over the past several weeks, there may be instances where we don’t get it perfect, but I can assure you that’s just what they’ll be—exceptions.
Update on hiring and team support
On March 16, we announced Amazon would invest over $350 million globally to increase pay for our teams during the coronavirus pandemic and would hire an additional 100,000 people in full and part-time jobs across our operations network to keep as many people as possible working during this crisis.
On March 16, we announced Amazon would invest over $350 million globally to increase pay for our teams during the coronavirus pandemic and would hire an additional 100,000 people in full and part-time jobs across our operations network to keep as many people as possible working during this crisis.
Today, we are proud to announce that our original 100,000 jobs pledge is filled and those new employees are working at sites across the U.S. helping to serve customers. We continue to see increased demand as our teams support their communities, and are going to continue to hire, creating an additional 75,000 jobs to help serve customers during this unprecedented time. Interested candidates can apply at www.amazon.com/jobsnow.
We know many people have been economically impacted as jobs in areas like hospitality, restaurants, and travel are lost or furloughed as part of this crisis and we welcome anyone out of work to join us at Amazon until things return to normal and their past employer is able to bring them back. We also continue to invest in pay increases and previously expected to spend $350 million to increase wages during this unprecedented time—we now expect that to be over $500 million. We’ll continue to invest in safety, pay, and benefits for our teams who are playing an invaluable role in getting items to communities around the world. Update, May 13: We're increasing our total investment in pay during COVID-19 to $800 million for our hourly employees and partners.
Finally, I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate our teams for serving their communities. If someone would rather not come to work, we are supporting them in their time off. If someone is diagnosed or comes to us who is presumptively diagnosed (but unable to get a test), we are giving them extra paid time off. In addition, we are also contacting people who have been in close contact with a diagnosed individual and giving them time off as well, for 14 days, to stay home with pay. We continue to evaluate all options to ensure the support of our teams during this unprecedented time.
To all our Amazon associates and partners, I say thank you for all you’re doing to serve customers. I have never been more proud of our teams. We are in this together, and together we can deliver.
Dave
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