Amazon plans to close three warehouses in the UK, affecting 1,200 workers

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Workers work inside the Amazon.co.uk fulfillment center in Hemel Hempstead, north London, on November 25, 2015. The company has announced it will close the site.

Adrian Dennis | Afp | Getty Images

LONDON — Amazon confirmed on Tuesday that it has launched consultations to close three warehouses in the United Kingdom, which employ a total of 1,200 people.

The company may close sites in Hemel Hempstead, Doncaster and Gourock as part of an assessment of its network “to ensure it fits the needs of our business and to improve the experience for our employees and customers,” a spokesperson told CNBC.

They said all workers would be offered new roles elsewhere. It did not specify the location of the planned opportunities for the 300 staff in Gourock in the west of Scotland.

A company spokesperson said: “All staff affected by the site closure advisory will have the opportunity to move to other facilities, and we will remain committed to our customers, employees and communities across the UK.” The company plans to open two new fulfillment centers in the UK over the next three years, at Peddimore and Stockton-on-Tees, adding 2,500 jobs.

An Amazon spokesperson added that the UK site closures were not part of the 18,000 job cuts the company announced last week. Amazon, which employs a total of 75,000 people in the UK, is trying to scale back some of the expansion it undertook during the Covid-19 period and prepare for a widely expected economic downturn in 2023.

The company has lost about 46% of its value on the US Nasdaq stock exchange over the past year, amid a widespread sell-off of technology stocks.

GMP’s Steve Garlick said the proposal was a “blow in the teeth” for the staff, after the busy holiday period.

“Excited Amazon workers cannot suddenly be expected to move to a different fulfillment center that may be many miles away,” he said, accusing the company of failing to provide a stable hiring model.

– CNBC’s Ryan Brown contributed to this article.

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