Amazon moves jobs from costly Seattle to less expensive Phoenix city

SAN FRANCISCO - US online retailer giant Amazon is closing a 130-person delivery support unit in Seattle on the west US coast and moving the jobs to less expensive Phoenix city in the southwest US state of Arizona, a media report said Thursday.

Amazon has announced the closure to workers at its central operation center in Seattle, the largest city in Washington state, where the minimum hourly salary is about 75 percent more than in Phoenix city, The Seattle Times newspaper said.

The 130 people in Amazon's Seattle unit were mainly responsible for supporting the online retail company's contract-delivery drivers who deliver groceries and other items, the newspaper quoted an employee as saying.

"They just made this blanket announcement that everybody was getting laid off," said the employee.

An Amazon spokeswoman confirmed the closure, but she said the Arizona unit has more space to grow, according to the report of the Seattle-based newspaper.

The Seattle logistics unit employee said salaries at the dispatch center in Seattle was $15.45 an hour, while a similar job in Phoenix starts at $11.25 an hour.

The Amazon move came amid a heated debate in Seattle about a head tax on large companies, after the city council passed a tax bill early this month to fund affordable housing and homelessness services.

The city council voted unanimously on May 14 for the bill, under which an annual tax of $275 will, starting next year, be slapped on each employee of for-profit companies that gross at least $20 million per year in the city.

However, the Amazon spokeswoman denied the relocation decision was related to the head tax bill, which it has strongly opposed, only saying the move was a business decision.

Earlier this year, Amazon laid off hundreds of employees at its headquarters in Seattle.