Greg's Corner

Amazon announces thousands of customer service jobs, but are they worth it?

Amazon recently announced that they will be hiring 3,000 employees to work at home as customer service reps. The job is said to pay $15/hr. for 20-29 hours per week but those hours could increase to 60 hours a week with overtime pay. Health benefits would be provided after 90 days. Does it sound too good to be true? Maybe.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TRhDSgqYzs%5D

The first catch is that you need to live in one of only 18 states and those states are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. While the $15/hr. rate is great compared to the cost of living in many of these states, a lot of these states are at-will states leaving employees without much recourse if they’re fired unjustly. You’re also required to have your own working computer and a reliable internet connection which could disqualify many people in these largely rural states.

So you have a blazing fast internet connection, a top of the line computer, and you live in one of these states. That means you’re ready to start making money with Amazon right? Well, before you do that you may want to check the reviews of Amazon’s work at home program on job review site Glassdoor. While Amazon gets an overall positive recommendation from Glassdoor users, you may want to look at some of the negative reviews from current and previous Amazon employees. Many of them talk about the lack of training and the lack of managerial support which in a high-volume customer service position could mean even more potential pressure placed on customer service reps.

We’re not saying that you shouldn’t apply for one of these jobs, however, you should consider all the options before committing yourself to work for Amazon.