American tech giant Amazon promised to create 15,000 new full-time jobs across Europe by the end of the year. The move will see the Seattle-based company increase its European workforce by approximately 30 percent as the firm’s goal is to employ 65,000 Europeans by the end of 2017. Apart from adding new jobs to numerous European countries, the company’s divisions like Amazon Web Services, Marketplace, and Kindle Direct Publishing will continue generating thousands of opportunities for Europeans looking to start new businesses, Amazon revealed in a press release published on Monday.
While the Seattle-based tech giant has already been committing a lot of resources to expanding its European operations and adding new jobs to the Old Continent in recent years, industry watchers are interpreting the company’s latest move as a direct response to several ongoing investigations into Amazon sponsored by the European Commission. The online retailer is currently being investigated over antitrust allegations and taxes. The company already tried to make amends with the European Commission on one antitrust front by offering to eliminate certain controversial clauses from its eBook distribution contracts in exchange for avoiding a fine that could amount to 10 percent of the firm’s annual revenue. While there’s still no update on that situation, Amazon could now be highlighting its positive impact on the European economy in an effort to alleviate any potential fines that the European antitrust watchdog may be preparing to issue.
However, it’s also possible that the company’s recent announcement has nothing to do with any ongoing probe into its European businesses as Amazon is currently in the process of a major global expansion. The Seattle-based tech giant recently announced that it’s planning to strengthen its U.S. workforce by 55 percent over the next year and a half as the company is looking to employ 280,000 Americans in total by mid-2018. On the other hand, if Amazon is truly trying to win some goodwill from the European regulators by highlighting its expansion efforts on the Old Continent, that strategy could prove to be effective seeing how many members of the European Union are currently struggling with driving job growth. Regardless, an update on European Commission’s investigations into Amazon is expected to follow in the coming months.