Amazon seeks office space in Cork for up to 1,000 workers

The growth of Amazon’s Irish operations looks set to continue following its appointment of real estate advisers to secure space in Cork for up to 1,000 workers.

While the search may be directly related to the expiration in September 2022 of Amazon’s lease on the 6,503sq m (70,000sq ft) of space it occupies currently at Cork Airport Business Park, The Irish Times understands that agent JLL has been instructed to source between 7,430sq m and 9,290sq m (between 80,000sq ft and 100,000sq ft) of office accommodation for the online retail giant.

A move from the business park to such new premises would give it the capacity to accommodate at least 100 to 300 additional workers in the city. Sources familiar with the matter said it was equally possible, however, that Amazon would seek to renew its existing lease on the space it occupies at Cork Airport Business Park while also taking on up to 100,000sq ft of new space. Such a move would give the US firm the ability to grow its Cork-based workforce by up to 1,000 people.

Dublin headcount

Amazon's Dublin headcount meanwhile remains on course for further growth, with negotiations to rent 2 Burlington Plaza understood to have reached an advanced stage. Should the deal proceed, the 6,968sq m (75,000sq ft) property which is currently occupied by Bank of Ireland would give Amazon the capacity to increase its Dublin-based headcount by about 750 workers.

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The news of Amazon’s requirements for additional office space in Cork and Dublin follows its agreement in late 2019 to lease 15,793sq m (170,000sq ft) of office space currently being developed by the McGarrell Reilly Group as part of its Charlemont Street Regeneration Project in Dublin city centre.

The Charlemont offices will, upon completion in 2022, give Amazon sufficient space for an additional 1,700 workers. It already employs more than 2,200 people in the capital between its European headquarters in the Shannon Building on Burlington Road and other locations.

Highly skilled jobs

In July of this year, Amazon announced its intention to grow its Irish-based workforce to 5,000 over the next two years through the creation of 1,000 permanent and mainly highly skilled jobs.

The positions include engineering roles in software development, network development, systems development, optical deployment, and development ops, as well as support engineer roles.

The company is also seeking data centre technicians and mechanical and electrical engineers, solutions architects, security specialists, big data specialists, and technical programme managers, with a number of non-technical programme roles and account managers also being recruited.

Amazon had said a significant number of the new roles would be based at its Dublin offices in Tallaght, Blanchardstown and the city centre, but Cork would also see a bump in recruitment.

The company previously announced 1,000 new jobs here over two years in June 2018; those jobs were filled over 18 months, and the company is expecting to fill the new roles faster than the two-year deadline it has promised.