Since the launch of Amazon.ca in 2002, Amazon’s investments have had a positive ripple effect across the Canadian economy, fueling job creation and opportunity for local businesses, communities, and individuals.
We know that our investments bring broader responsibility— and we’re applying our innovative spirit and resources to generate benefits and vitality across multiple sectors, including small businesses, creative industries, community organizations, and more.
Discover how Amazon supports local communities by reading our 2023 Amazon Canada Impact Report or by checking out its top 5 highlights below.
Investing in the economy
Since 2010, Amazon has direct investments of more than $40 billion in our Canadian operations. This includes both capital expenditures (such as the fulfilment centres and data centres we build) and operating expenditures (such as the jobs we create).
These direct investments create a ripple effect through the economy: since 2010, Keystone Strategy, an independent economics consulting firm, estimates that Amazon’s investments have contributed more than $33 billion to the Canada GDP. These investments have helped us create more than 45,000 good jobs with competitive pay and benefits across Canada, at our Tech Hubs in Vancouver and Toronto and our more than 60 operations sites from coast to coast.
Investing in skills training
In 2023 alone, close to 3,000 employees across Amazon’s Canadian fulfillment network participated in Career Choice - an education benefit that empowers eligible employees to learn new skills for career success at Amazon or elsewhere.
For eligible employees, Amazon pays up to 95% of tuition and fees (up to a yearly maximum) towards a certificate or diploma in qualified fields of study, leading to in-demand jobs. We’re making it easier to participate by bringing many classes on-site in dozens of our fulfilment centres.
In March 2023, we were proud to expand the Career Choice program to offer Amazon employees across Canada access to free English and French-Canadian language training.
Since 2013, AWS has helped train more than 200,000 individuals in Canada with cloud computing skills. AWS Training and Certification equips organizations and learners of all skill levels, roles, and backgrounds with the knowledge and practical skills to innovate in the AWS Cloud. We offer hundreds of hours of free, self-paced training for new-to-cloud learners and more than 600 free digital courses in up to 14 languages on AWS Skill Builder. We provide free and low-cost cloud computing skills training in various modalities – from instructor-led AWS classroom training to hands-on, interactive game-based learning.
Investing in communities
We look to leverage our scale for good and use our ability to innovate quickly to strengthen communities where our employees live and work. In 2022, we donated more than 500,000 items to charities and not-for-profit organizations across Canada.
Your Voice is Power - an in-school curriculum presented by Amazon Future Engineer, TakingITGlobal, and Amazon Music that teaches coding skills to middle and high school students while facilitating important discussions on the First Nations, Inuit and MĂ©tis experience - engaged more than 15,000 students and teachers across Canada in 2023.
Investing in sustainability
Amazon is on a path to power our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of our original 2030 commitment.
With a total of four renewable energy projects in Canada, Amazon is currently the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the country, according to BloombergNEF. Once operational, the projects will generate more than 2.3 million megawatt hours (MWH) of clean energy – enough to power 1.69 million Canadian homes.
Delivering at our fastest Prime speeds ever
In 2023, Amazon delivered at our fastest Prime speeds ever in Canada, with more than 20 million items available with free Prime shipping and millions of items available to Prime members with Same-Day or One-Day Delivery.
Amazon is delivering to Prime members in over 4,500 cities and towns across Canada with One-Day Delivery (with no minimum purchase required), with more than half of Prime member orders from Amazon fulfillment centres in Canada delivered in one day or less. As of Q3 2023, Amazon has delivered more than 205 million units to Canada Prime members the same or next day—over seven times what was delivered at those speeds by that point in 2019.
Read the full Amazon Canada 2023 Impact Report here.
