(Fresno Bee) Amazon’s new fulfillment center under construction in southwest Fresno will employ 1,500 workers when it opens this year. The company’s decision last summer to locate the center in Fresno came only after the city affirmed a package of economic incentives that will be worth up to $30 million over the next 30 years.
The rebates that the company will get on property and sales taxes are among the types of job-growing strategies used by communities across the country to entice Amazon and other companies. But the effectiveness of such incentives is being questioned by a Washington, D.C., think tank’s economic analysis of the employment effects of Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
In the Economic Policy Institute’s report entitled “Unfulfilled Promises,” EPI economist Ben Zipperer and economic analyst Janelle Jones concluded that on average, “Amazon’s fulfillment centers are ineffective at providing net job growth.”
