Amazon seeking employees for New Stanton warehouse; job fair slated

Amazon is ramping up hiring at its New Stanton warehouse this month and is planning to place 600 employees at the site by the end of the year.

The e-commerce giant began staffing shifts earlier this month and anticipates having additional employees by the end of the month.

Janice Albright, site administrator for the PA Career Link office at the Westmoreland County Community College near Youngwood, said her office will host a job fair 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday. There will be opportunities for people to get a job on the spot, Albright said.

Amazon is offering workers a four-day workweek of 10 hours a day at the automated warehouse, with a flexible schedule for the days or evenings they work, Albright said.

The company wants to hire 600 employees for the 1 million square foot warehouse — what Amazon terms as an “inbound crossdock ” — that serves as a restocking area for the inventory on hand, said Sam Fisher, an Amazon spokesman. The company expects the $120 million inbound crossdock to be fully operational by the holidays, Fisher said.

Workers at the site will be breaking down larger containers of inventory, which then would be shipped to the fulfillment centers, where packages would be shipped to customers. The warehouse has a lot of conveyor belts moving inventory through the building, Fisher said.

“It’s how we prepare our inventory to be shipped,” Fisher said.

Albright is expecting a good turnout at the job fair. She said she placed a notice on the agency’s Facebook page “and it got a lot of likes.” She said she has talked with recent hires at the warehouse and they were pleased with the work.

Amazon is ramping up employment on the heels of shipping giant rival UPS cutting back jobs this spring at its New Stanton warehouse. Westmoreland County had 5,600 unemployed workers as of May, when the county had an unemployment rate of 3.1%, according to the state Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.

The developer of the warehouse and property owner, SunCap Property Group of Charlotte, N.C., began building the site in December 2022, leveling a hillside off Glenn Fox Road. The developer initially anticipated the warehouse, located about a mile from the Pennsylvania Turnpike exit, would be finished in about a year.

The impact of Amazon hiring workers with a starting wage of $17.75 an hour, plus benefits, will likely place more wage pressure of other employers in the area who are seeking workers, Albright said.

“How could it not. These are entry-level jobs, walking in the door” and getting good wages and benefits, Albright said.