Why Amazon’s new jobs announcement isn’t as good as it seems

Announcement followed furore over ads seeking “intelligence analysts” to look at labour issues, writes James Moore

A worker at an Amazon fulfilment centre (Getty)

Huzzah! I can actually write about some jobs being created rather than axed. No less than 7,000 of them, courtesy of the global giant known as Amazon.

This really ought to be an unabashedly super shiny good news story amid the pandemic gloom. It was elsewhere making its presence felt. Costa, the coffee outfit responsible for some notable instances of decency during lockdown, said 1,650 jobs were at risk as a result of the continuing uncertainty over the recovery of its trade.

Trouble is, Amazon is a company that looks more and more like one of those sinister mega-corporations depicted by writers of dystopian fiction such as William Gibson.