July 24, 2023

The new Amazon fulfillment center now counts 1,700 employees, and starting today, the company has expanded its education benefits for them.

The company, which has both the 3 million-square-foot fulfillment center at Foundation Park in northwest Sioux Falls and a smaller last-mile delivery center 5 miles to the east, offers a Career Choice program to pay for all employees qualifying tuition costs through Amazon education partnerships.

The newest one in Sioux Falls is with Southeast Technical College, and leaders from the school toured the Amazon center today.

Amazon will pay $5,250 annually for college costs for full-time employees and up to $2,625 for part-time employees.

“There’s not that many companies that have that much flexibility in terms of what they will pay for,” Southeast Tech president Bob Griggs said. “They see the value in providing those opportunities and career pathways and working with employees and training them, whether they continue with Amazon or choose to go a different route and career field. An employer willing to pay for that is pretty unique.”

But that’s the sort of benefit that has allowed Amazon to ramp up hiring, general manager Tim Choate said.

The goal to fully operate the northwest center was 1,500 employees. Once Amazon met that, all its floors could become operational, and the center could start offering same-day service to area Prime members.

The building has been fully operational for a few months, and starting ahead of Prime Day earlier this month, the fulfillment center started same-day delivery to the last-mile station.

Prime Day “was great,” Choate said. “We hit all our commitments, and we were able to support the community, and the associates had a good time.”

He credits ongoing community outreach through everything from flea market booths and parade participation to positive word of mouth and availability of programs like tuition reimbursement for helping with recruitment. In addition to Southeast Tech, Amazon has a partnership with USD and likely will roll one out with SDSU next.

“Today is the first day with Southeast Tech, and there’s quite a bit of interest,” Choate said. “We just had a career fair essentially with USD to say we joined, so we’re doing a blitz to make sure the associates understand.”

With Amazon’s reimbursement, part-time students essentially could see all their tuition covered depending on the program, Griggs said. Southeast Tech’s enrollment is tracking up 2 percent to 3 percent for fall, and much of the growth is in part-time students, he said.

“We’re definitely seeing that as a growing trend with the cost of higher education and also individuals wanting and needing to keep working and doing the programs we offer part time,” he said. “Forty percent of our students are part time, and many of those are working adults and juggling career and family, and the Career Choice program, where they are paying essentially for a student to attend, I think they can move fairly quickly through a number of our programs where we provide that part-time pathway.”

While the benefit has been posted only on the school’s website, “we are already working with some of their employees anxious to get started,” Griggs said. “There’s a lot of interest in business programming, accounting, even some health care. … They have a number of nursing students out there working and plan on using that tuition benefit to help.”

Amazon is “100 percent flexible on school hours,” Choate said, adding the hope is to use a classroom within the fulfillment center to offer some classes through Southeast Tech or other schools.

“Hopefully, we’ll get associates in the door, but mostly it’s our impact on the community,” he said. “I want to impact the community for the greater good and make this the best place to live … so we don’t have that brain drain out of South Dakota. They can stay here and have that great job, and we can provide access to them where maybe there was an access barrier before.”

The fulfillment center can accommodate up to 2,300 employees, so hiring continues, he said. He’s hoping at least 150 associates per semester take advantage of tuition reimbursement, he said.

“But the sky is the limit,” he added, in terms of how many can use the benefit. “I would love to run everyone through.”