SPECIAL REPORT
Amazon fulfillment center on Morgan Road in Clay. The 3.8-million-squarefoot space facility opened in April. It’s the largest of its type in New York state.
As Amazon Faces Setbacks, Its CNY Fulfillment Center Is Growing While Amazon has scrapped new warehouses and delayed some projects already under construction, it’s doubling its workforce in Clay to 3,000 workers By Ken Sturtz
T
he headlines for the world’s second-largest company have been decidedly negative this year. Amazon hemorrhaged billions as e-commerce slowed coming out of the pandemic. A nationwide building spree saddled it with more space and workers than it now needs. Further headwinds may be on the way as Congress considers new antitrust legislation aimed at big technology companies like Amazon. But those problems seem distant at its mammoth warehouse and fulfillment center on Morgan Road in Clay — known in company jargon as SYR1 — where Amazon is actually expanding. When the 3.8-million-square-foot space opened in April the company said it planned to hire 1,000-1,500 fulltime workers. This summer company
officials announced they had reached an initial hiring goal of 1,500 workers and were hiring an additional 200 people a week with the goal of having 3,000 employees when the holiday shopping season begins in October. The news that Amazon was expanding and hiring even more workers in Central New York was made more surprising by the fact that the company is doing the opposite across its footprint. In July Amazon reported losing $2.03 billion in the second quarter of 2022, compared to a nearly $8 billion profit last year. It was the second consecutive quarter of losses. Several factors are at play. The spike in online shopping during the pandemic has ebbed as Americans return to in-person shopping and shift their spending
44 OSWEGO COUNTY BUSINESS OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2022
from consumer goods to things they couldn’t do during the height of the pandemic, such as travel or dining out. The highest inflation in 40 years has sent costs rising, causing some to ease away from unnecessary spending. But it was a strategy Amazon adopted during the pandemic that is causing the largest headaches. “The big issue is they overbuilt,” said Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University. “They went on just a major expansion on all their warehouses.” Amazon nearly doubled the number of warehouses and data centers it leased and owned between 2019 and 2021. Penfield said Amazon probably believed consumers who turned to
