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About a year after opening, more than 2,000 people are now working at Amazon’s Cortana fulfillment center—double the 1,000 jobs pledged when the center was first announced.
That’s according to Jessica Breaux, a senior economic development manager at Amazon who spoke about the e-commerce giant’s economic impact in the Red Stick at the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge’s meeting Wednesday.
“Our experience here in Baton Rouge has been tremendous,” Breaux said.
Other highlights of Breaux’s address:
- More than 40 new business licenses have been issued within a 1-mile radius of the Cortana facility since it opened last June, and 197 new business licenses have been issued within a 2-mile radius.
- Between 2022 and 2024, sales tax collections in the Cortana Corridor Economic Development District grew from $657,000 to $1.36 million—a more than 100% increase.
- The starting wage at the Cortana facility is $17.50 an hour, which Breaux described as “industry-leading pay.” Full-time employees at the facility get the same benefits package that corporate employees do.
“That is really tremendous growth for a part of the city that at one time was an economic powerhouse but certainly saw a decline after the closure of the Cortana Mall,” Breaux said.
On a statewide level, Amazon currently employs more than 6,500 people. The company is continuing to expand its last-mile delivery network and is set to open the state’s first same-day facility in Jefferson Parish before the end of the year. A same-day facility is one that is able to fulfill and deliver orders within a single day.
Breaux, a Louisiana native who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, also noted that more than 3,000 small and mid-size businesses in Louisiana currently use the Amazon platform to reach their customers.
