If you’re looking for a job, and you don’t want to leave the house, Amazon might have you covered.
The company recently announced that it will hire 5,000 home-based workers, one of the most substantial campaigns to find remote employees in recent memory.
Amazon is hiring for a number of positions, but they’re all based around customer service; we imagine that some (or most) of the new employees will serve as customer service representatives, given the starting pay.
But before we get to the pay, we should note that some of the jobs feature benefits. Those benefits actually seem pretty attractive, as reported by Inc.com:
“… life and disability insurance, dental and vision insurance with premiums paid in full by Amazon, and funding toward medical insurance,” along with the company’s Career Choice program, which “prepays 95 percent of tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a future career at Amazon.”
The company also reimburses 95 percent of the cost of textbooks via its Career Choice program, and as every college student knows, that’s a big benefit. According to Amazon’s hiring site, health care is available for part-time workers after 90 days. There’s also a 401(k) plan with a company match, and, of course, several employee discount programs.
The biggest benefit might be the ability to work from home, provided that you’ve got a decent work space. There’s nothing better than a commute that literally takes a few seconds, and while working in your underwear is weird at first, it quickly becomes the best part of the job.
So, the big question: How much do these work-from-home jobs pay?
And that’s where the disappointment comes in. The starting pay for most of the jobs is $10, and that’s a nationwide rate—if you live in a city with a high cost of living, you’re probably not going to be living the high life.
There are part-time positions, however, which are available on nights and weekends, so some of these positions might be attractive to people looking for second (or third) jobs. There is, however, one other big catch.
Amazon is only hiring people from 26 states. This is likely due to differences in unemployment insurance rates and state taxes, given that California is one of the states excepted (sorry, Silicon Valley).
If you need another reason to consider the gig, consider the pitch that Amazon makes on the application page:
“Amazing. It’s what we do,” the site reads. “From the moment our customers place an order to the moment it’s in their hands, it’s Amazon Worldwide Ops and Customer Service that makes the magic happen. Come deliver amazing.”
For $10 an hour, of course. You can learn more about the available positions and apply here. If you’re not into the whole work-from-home scene, the 5,000 new positions are part of a nationwide hiring initiative from Amazon; the company intends to find 25,000 new employees.