Amazon to start hiring for Cortana center in Baton Rouge; facility to open in mid-June

Amazon will begin posting job listings for its Cortana fulfillment center in anticipation of a mid-June opening.

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome shared a post on social media announcing that Amazon will start posting the first jobs Friday evening. The company will hire more than 1,000 full-time workers. To apply for a job, go to amazon.com/flexiblejobs and search by zip code.

An Amazon official said the center is on schedule to start operations in the middle of next month.

Job openings will post in batches of a few hundred at a time, the company said. To get job alerts sent to their phone, potential employees can text HIREME to 31432. Amazon will also work with community partners on neighborhood hiring events. 

Amazon said most of the front line jobs at the center will start at $17 an hour. Most employees will have access to benefits such as health care, dental and pre-paid tuition/job training, once they start working

Last year, during a media tour, Amazon officials said they projected the $200 million center would open by mid-2024. There had been talk about opening the operation is 2023, but those plans were delayed by supply chain issues.

Demolition started on Cortana Mall in March 2021.

The facility is nearly 90 feet tall, and the second through fifth floors will be taken up by storage, robots and conveyors, which will pluck items and transport them down to the first floor for packaging and distribution. None of the items stored in the Cortana center will be sent directly to customers; instead the facility acts as the first cog in the distribution system Amazon has established.

Amazon plans to hire about 1,000 people to work at the Cortana site.