Amazon sticks with office expansion plans in New York and other locations

The pandemic has upended many companies’ expansion plans. Not Amazon’s.

The tech giant said Tuesday that it would hire 3,500 white-collar employees across the country, including 2,000 in New York, following through on plans it had largely put in place before the coronavirus made office towers empty as employees work from home.

The new Amazon jobs will fill a lot of office space that the company acquired before Covid-19 took hold in the United States. In early March, Amazon bought the iconic Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue from the coworking company WeWork, which was retrenching after unsustainable expansion. The New York Post reported at the time that Amazon had paid $1.15 billion for the property. Amazon declined to comment on the deal.