Amazon's massive 1-million-square-foot warehouse and fulfillment centre has officially been opened, welcoming 250 jobs to the region.
Over the next year, site manager Greg Clutton is hoping to fulfill the company's promise of 1,000 jobs as the facility continues to ramp up production.
"The facility is really strategically located within the Ontario market," said Clutton. "We have sites within London, Hamilton, Brampton all within a close drive for us to be able to meet customer demands. So we can move units here back to those sites very efficiently and make sure that we have inventory available for our consumers."
This facility will serve other Amazon facilities and not deliver directly from the building on Old Mill Road. They will receive shipments of products that will then go to other facilities, like the one on Cherry Blossom Road in Cambridge before being delivered directly to customers.
Clutton adds that this expedited process means faster delivery times for their customers as products won't have to come from the GTA or other parts of the province to hit Cambridge doors.
At the ribbon cutting today, Ontario minister of red tape reduction and Kitchener Conestoga MPP Mike Harris said that attracting large companies like Amazon will continue to make Ontario and the Region of Waterloo a driver of growth on the global market.
"When we look at economic development in the region, seeing large companies come in and invest here is really a key pathway to making sure that we're going to be creating good-paying jobs as we navigate the next, 10, 15, 20 years and see the region grow to probably close to a million people," said Harris.
He said the technology that Amazon will be utilizing around Artificial Intelligence and automation is key in pushing the province forward.
"These are the types of jobs that people are looking for, right? Good paying jobs with a socially responsible company that's already giving back," he said.
Amazon has donated $66,000 to the YWCA Cambridge's Small Steps to Success program and has helped finance the Shantz Hill Towns development for Habitat for Humanity.
Harris noted his role as red tape reduction minister is to help bring industry back to province and help manufacturers who are already here invest and continue to grow.
"Under the previous Liberal government, we lost almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs here in the province; almost 20,000 of those came from Waterloo region specifically, so we're being able to attract those large-scale facilities back here," he said.
Clutton said now that the facility is up and running, the response they've been getting from the community has been overwhelming.
Amazon is processing hundreds of employment applications and he doesn't think there will be an issue finding the remaining 650 workers they need to ramp up production.
He said the company will implement some robotics and AI into their business model in Cambridge, but there is no plan to make the fulfilment centre fully automated.
"We have some automation that will come in 2025 but the other robotics aren't necessarily in the cards right now," said Clutton. "But we're excited to be here and offer Cambridge and Waterloo region residents better and faster service."
