All 1,000 members of staff will be affected after online retail giant Amazon announced it is to shut its Rugeley site.
The move will coincide with the opening of a new Sutton Coldfield warehouse and fufilment centre – marking a £500 million investment.
All Rugeley employees will be offered new roles at the new 547,000 sq ft warehouse which will employ around 1,400 people when it opens.
Neil Travis, Amazon’s Regional Director, said: “The West Midlands is an important region for Amazon and I am delighted to confirm our commitment with this £500 million investment in a new state-of-the-art fulfilment centre in Sutton Coldfield. The new site will create 400 new jobs for this year, taking our total workforce in the West Midlands to more than 4,000 full and part-time roles, and our investment in the region to more than £3.2 billion since 2010.
“Amazon continues to invest in our buildings and innovative technology to provide our people with some of the most advanced workplaces of their kind in the world, ensuring their wellbeing while delivering for our customers.”
A spokesperson added that as part of the move, Amazon’s Rugeley fulfilment centre will close, subject to consultation, with all 1,000 employees being offered roles at the new fulfilment centre less than 20 miles away, or other Amazon buildings. No compulsory redundancies are expected, they said.
The Sutton Coldfield site is expected to start handling customer orders in early October 2023, growing to 2,000 people within three years.
Recruitment has started for a wide range of new roles, including engineers, HR and IT professionals through to health & safety and finance specialists and operations managers, as well as the teams who pick, pack and ship customer orders.
