Contributed Report, The Progress-Index
Amazon recently announced significant milestones for its Career Choice program. The innovative program covers 95 percent of the cost of tuition for associates to remove the financial barrier associated with returning to school. In addition to partnering with local colleges and universities, Amazon also offers dedicated, on-site classrooms in their fulfillment centers to provide associates with convenient access to college-level coursework related to in-demand fields.
Since the program began, hundreds of Amazon associates from Virginia have enrolled in Career Choice where the top fields of study are Commercial Driver Training (CDL), information technology, computer science and healthcare and laboratory delivery.
First launched in the summer of 2012, Amazon has made several key investments in the program including:
• Increasing the amount of tuition pre-paid for courses to $12,000 over four years.
• Decreasing the time associates must be with the company to become eligible to just one year.
• Reducing associate commuting times by creating purpose-built classrooms at its U.S. fulfillment centers and announcing plans to create an additional 25 dedicated on-site Career Choice classrooms.
• Announcing that beginning this year, most new fulfillment centers will be built with on-site classrooms as part of their standard blueprint and committing to retrofit existing fulfillment centers across the U.S with dedicated Career Choice classrooms.
An Amazon fulfillment center with a Career Choice classroom is located in Chester.
Full-time employees at Amazon also receive competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare, 401(k) and company stock awards starting on day one. Virginians interested in a career at Amazon can apply online at http://www.amazondelivers.jobs/.