It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas — and Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday — at the Amazon fulfillment center in Waco. The 700,000-square-foot, 24-hour operation seemingly is hiring on all cylinders as packages fly through the sky like Dunder, Blixem and Rudolph.
An additional 1,000 staffers have joined the festivities since October, fulfillment center manager said Juan Lopez during a tour Tuesday. A Venezuelan, Lopez came to Waco specifically to open the robotics-centric fulfillment center that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott promised during a rainy local visit in October 2020. Company projections that at least 1,000 people making a minimum $15 an hour would work there have been rendered obsolete.
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The three-story center on Exchange Parkway employed 2,300 as of Tuesday, a figure swollen by peak-season hires that continue after two months into the process. Newbies make at least $17 an hour, Lopez said.
Initial concerns about finding enough people to staff a fulfillment center in Central Texas have vanished, Lopez said. Experience has revealed a labor pool stretching from South Dallas to Austin, with Temple, about 30 minutes away on Interstate 35, emerging as a contributor. He said local hires have shown an impressive mechanical aptitude for maintaining equipment and troubleshooting any potential problems with the robotic systems.
Amazon’s Waco fulfillment center has added 1,000 employees since October, swelling its workforce to 2,300 people for the holidays.
Amazon received incentives from Waco and McLennan County upon its decision to place a fulfillment center here, amounting to almost $9.5 million in property tax breaks spread over 20 years. Whether those incentives include residency requirements for employees could not be determined Wednesday.
“Without knowing the number of employees residing in and outside McLennan County, it would be inappropriate to respond about the residency of Amazon’s employees,” said Kris Collins, industry recruiter and senior vice president for economic development at the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.
Collins said Amazon received a business grant from the city and county.
“The agreements provide a grant from taxes paid by the company based upon the achievement of investment and employment metrics,” Collins said in an email response to questions. “The agreement required an investment of at least $200 million in real and personal property improvements and the creation of at least 1,000 new jobs by December 31, 2024. According to the McLennan County Appraisal District’s website, Amazon has more than $330 million in real and personal property investments for the building and equipment on the 2023 tax rolls and a substantial amount of taxable inventory.”
Packages processed in Waco do not travel directly to local porches. Amazon spent an estimated $250 million to create a way station for sorting and packing inbound merchandise for delivery to resource centers. Waco deals only in items “smaller than a microwave,” Lopez said, naming books, iPads and earbuds as among the more plentiful gizmos on the premises. He said nearly 99% of items processed locally are bound for Texas addresses.
Numbers matter at Amazon, which provided a fact sheet about AUS 3, the facility in Waco, prepared by media contact Allie Payne.
She said Amazon in Waco accepts 285,000 items per day, on average, a number that climbs to 400,000 items daily during the peak season. An average of 257,000 items are shipped out daily during normal circumstances, but November and December produce counts of 385,000 items per day.
Payne said 40 million items are stored in Waco’s fulfillment center.
An item spends 60 to 90 minutes wending its way through the building, moved along with assistance from 28 miles of “conveyance,” as well as employees using about 75,000 containers and 58,000 totes. Slip-ups are few and far between, Lopez said, mentioning a 97% success rate. He said bar codes track destinations and assist in matching labels to contents. An algorithm compares box weight with established norms, and “kicks out” those packages not falling within an acceptable range, Lopez said.
“About 3% get kicked out,” said Lopez, adding the process could be viewed as Amazon’s application of artificial intelligence.
He said robotics and robotic arms have their place at Waco’s Amazon facility, “primarily to eliminate repetitive motion and to eliminate the need to pick up heavy objects,” both of which may cause bodily wear and tear.
Attempting to ensure staffers peacefully and safely co-exist with their robotic counterparts, Amazon fits some employees with jackets festooned with lights. They create a protective shield, of sorts, that prevents worker and robot from colliding should an employee need to enter the robot’s domain, possibly to retrieve a package that has fallen from a shelf, Lopez said.
The Amazon fact sheet also paints a picture of the company’s presence in Texas.
The state is home to 50 Amazon fulfillment and sortation centers and 33 delivery stations. Amazon employs 88,000 full- and part-timers statewide.
A section dedicated to small business involvement with Amazon says more than 38,000 independent sellers in Texas conduct business in Amazon’s store. In the 12-month period ending December 2022, independents in Texas sold more than 180 million products on Amazon, the company said.
The company’s direct financial impact is significant, but local real estate agent Gregg Glime said Amazon’s influence is felt beyond its campus at 2000 Exchange Parkway. Nearby development, including speculative office space right across Exchange Parkway from Amazon, has arisen.
“Amazon is undeniably a prominent player and a significant newcomer in the market. We have been fortunate to witness several such entrants in recent years,” Glime said by email. “The space across the street is fully occupied, leaving us with only 9 acres of land available for sale.
“Attracting these companies to our region and successfully securing their commitment to establishing a presence in our community requires extensive efforts from various industries,” he said. “It’s an exciting time to be involved with real estate in the city of Waco and McLennan County.”
