Amazon’s massive $550 million warehouse and distribution center is under construction near Buffalo, but local officials have expressed fears that the e-commerce giant won’t find enough workers for the projected 1,000 jobs when it opens.
The “first mile” facility, the size of 53 football fields, in the rural town of Niagara is not served by public transportation and the jobs are not considered particularly well-paying, though they will fetch more than minimum wage.
Scheduled to open in 2026, the facility is being built at a time when Western New York’s workforce is shrinking and remote work remains in high demand.
“I hope we can find 1,000 people to come work here,” said Niagara Town Supervisor Sylvia Virtuoso. he told The Buffalo News.
“I think it’s quite a challenge. We try to employ people from the city and it’s difficult, and our salaries are significantly higher. That’s going to be a big challenge.”
Construction cranes are hard at work at the fulfillment center site at 8995 Lockport Road, where the steel skeleton is being erected on the 216-acre site Amazon purchased last month.
In 2022, local government agencies approved a $124 million tax incentive package to entice Amazon to build the Niagara facility.
But the subsidy — said to be the ninth-largest Amazon has ever received — drew opposition as residents worried about the traffic problems the facility would cause as well as the $15-an-hour jobs, a wage considered by many to be insufficient.
Virtuoso told The Buffalo News there are plans to add a bus route that will allow workers to travel to the site from Niagara Falls and the SUNY Niagara Community College campus in Sanborn.
“I think everyone will be able to go to work if they want to,” Virtuoso said.
“A lot of things can change, including wages. We all agree. We know what it takes to employ people, and I know Amazon knows that, too.”
The Post has requested comment from Amazon.
The 3.1 million-square-foot fulfillment center, where products are first processed before shipping, will use robots to receive, store and ship items that customers purchase through the company’s popular website.
Amazon operates three “first mile” facilities in New York State: in Rochester, Syracuse and Staten Island.
In total, Amazon has built 10 fulfillment and sortation centers and 36 delivery stations across the Empire State since 2010, adding about 47,000 jobs to the state’s economy.
In total, Amazon has invested $41.5 billion in New York State over the past 15 years.
In 2019, local progressive Democratic officials in New York City, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, led a public backlash against Amazon’s plans to build a headquarters in the Long Island City section of Queens.
Amazon had agreed to build the sprawling campus along the East River, where it planned to hire 25,000 people. In exchange, the company received tax breaks totaling about $3 billion from the city and state.
Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and then-Governor Andrew Cuomo supported the Amazon deal, arguing that the tax revenue generated by the arrival of new workers would eventually outweigh the incentives offered to the company.
Outrage over tax incentives led Amazon to abandon its planned campus in Long Island City. Instead, it opted to expand plans for its HQ2 in Crystal City, Virginia, as well as further renovate its main headquarters in Seattle.
