Amazon's economic impact in Canada: How we're delivering for Canadians

Since 2010, we’ve made direct investments in our Canadian operations of more than $50 billion (CAD). This includes both capital expenditures (such as the fulfilment centres and data centres we build) and operating expenditures (such as transportation, shipping, and facility costs, as well as employee costs). These direct investments create a ripple effect through the economy, as the firms that supply goods and services to Amazon expand and associated household spending increases. Keystone Strategy, an independent economics consulting firm, estimates that Amazon’s investments contributed an additional $43 billion (CAD) in spillover value-added effects to the Canadian GDP between 2010 and 2023 (Amazon’s spillover value-added effects represent the indirect effects of Amazon’s investments on Canada’s GDP. Amazon’s investment has indirect effects in the economy due to the expanded production of firms that supply the goods and services purchased by Amazon.)

Amazon's current footprint in Canada encompasses more than 60 different corporate and logistics sites. In the last year, we celebrated the opening of four new fulfilment centres in Canada, including our first specialized AMXL fulfilment centres (where employees pick, pack, and ship customer orders for extra-large products, such as furniture, mattresses and exercise equipment) in Calgary, Alberta and Belleville, Ontario and two new Amazon Robotics fulfilment centres, in Calgary, Alberta and London, Ontario. 

More than 8,000 corporate technology and non-technology employees work at our downtown Tech Hubs in Toronto and Vancouver. In Vancouver, we recently celebrated a milestone at The Post, the newest building in our local Tech Hub, when we completed our move-in to the building’s 21-floor South Tower. Teams working at our Tech Hubs—including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon Ads, Alexa, Prime Video, and Amazon Music—help create new features and services that customers around the world can enjoy. 

In December 2023, AWS opened the AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region, becoming the first major cloud services provider to launch an infrastructure region in Western Canada. Comprised of three Availability Zones (AZs), the Region joins the existing AWS Canada (Central) Region in Montreal, which also consists of three AZs, and provides customers with more options to run workloads with even greater resilience and availability. 

Amazon MGM Studios has signed a landmark contract with Pinewood Toronto Studios for exclusive use of new production facilities at the studios in downtown Toronto for future productions. The deal is the first multi-year commitment by Amazon MGM Studios to Canadian studio space and includes exclusive use of five new state-of-the-art sound stages, accompanying workshops and office accommodation, totalling approximately 160,000 square feet.

Amazon is a major engine for job creation in Canada, with a local workforce that has grown to more than 45,000 people. Since 2010, we have paid more than $17 billion (CAD) in compensation and benefits to Amazon employees in Canada.

We offer opportunities to people with a wide range of qualifications, from entry-level positions across our logistics network to jobs for early-stage professionals and experienced specialists in fields such as software development, linguistics, logistics, human resources, and IT. Our state-of-the art facilities offer local employees a great working environment, opportunities for professional development, competitive salaries, and rewarding benefits.

All regular employees regardless of tenure or seniority receive a competitive salary and benefits package, which includes comprehensive health benefits and RRSP matching. Base pay for associate roles starts at more than $19 an hour. All eligible fulfilment network employees have access to Amazon Career Choice, an innovative program uniquely designed to help upskill people who are interested in pursuing a future in a high-demand field by covering up to 95% of tuition fees. In 2023 alone, close to 3,000 employees across Amazon’s Canadian fulfillment network participated in Career Choice.

In 2023, Amazon invested more than $70 million (CAD) toward pay increases for customer fulfillment and transportation employees. Through Amazon’s step plan compensation model, eligible hourly full- and part-time employees can count on planned pay increases every six months until their 24-month anniversary, and then they receive another increase at month 36.

In addition to direct employment, our investments indirectly support a large number of jobs in our Canadian supply chain and across the network of sellers who have used our technology and services to grow their businesses through increased sales in the Amazon.ca store and other Amazon stores. Keystone Strategy’s economic research estimates that companies in Amazon’s supply chain (for instance, construction companies building our logistics sites) supported more than 88,000 additional jobs in 2022 and more than 90,000 in 2023 thanks to having Amazon as their customer.

We are also using our size and scale to make a difference for the planet. Amazon was the first signatory of The Climate Pledge, which we launched together with non-governmental organization Global Optimism. That means we are committed to becoming net-zero carbon across our entire global business by 2040—a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement’s goal. Amazon is committed to addressing sustainability at every stage of our value chain, including our supply chain, our employees, our customers, and our communities.

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.

As we continue to make investments in our Canadian operations and our growing workforce, we pay taxes that fall in two different categories:

• Directly incurred taxes: The taxes that are directly incurred and payable by Amazon in Canada include corporate income tax and payroll taxes.
• Indirect taxes collected and remitted: The taxes we collect from our customers and other third parties that we remit to the federal and provincial tax authorities. They include the federal goods and services/harmonized sales tax and provincial sales taxes in Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.

Below we’ve outlined our contribution for the full year 2022:

• Our total tax contribution (combining directly incurred and indirect taxes) was $3.2 billion (CAD) (2021: $2.1 billion (CAD).
• Our total directly incurred taxes were $603 million (CAD) (2021: $431 million (CAD)). Employer taxes accounted for the largest proportion of these taxes.
• The indirect taxes we collected were an additional $2.6 billion (CAD) (2021: $1.6 billion (CAD)) as a result of our business activities in Canada.

Below we’ve outlined our contribution for the full year 2023:

• Our total tax contribution (combining directly incurred and indirect taxes) was $3.8 billion (CAD).
• Our total directly incurred taxes were $631 million (CAD). Employer taxes accounted for the largest proportion of these taxes.
• The indirect taxes we collected were an additional $3.2 billion (CAD) as a result of our business activities in Canada.

We are proud to continue investing in Canada, and we are committed to keep contributing to the Canadian economy, serving our customers, creating jobs, fostering innovation, and unlocking new opportunities for Canadian businesses.