Amazon.com announced plans to open a new fulfillment center in Monee, Ill. At the more than 850,000-square-foot facility, hundreds and hundreds of Amazon employees will pick, pack and ship small items to customers such as books, electronics and consumer goods.

"We place our fulfillment centers close to customers to provide the fastest possible delivery times, and the growth in Illinois is directly tied to our increasing customer demand," said Akash Chauhan, vice president of Amazon's North America Operations. "Illinois is a great state to do business, and we are happy to be expanding there to serve customers."

Full-time employees at Amazon receive competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare, 401(k) and company stock awards starting on day one, as well as generous maternity and parental leave benefits.

"We feel very fortunate that Amazon has decided to build another fulfillment center in Will County, bringing the total facilities here to four," said Will County Executive Lawrence Walsh. "It's very exciting to think that Amazon could soon be employing thousands and thousands of full-time employees in the area. We look forward to the Monee site opening."

In addition to competitive wages and comprehensive benefits, Amazon also offers employees innovative programs like Career Choice, where it will pre-pay 95 percent of tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Since the program's launch four years ago, more than 7,000 employees in 10 countries have pursued degrees in game design and visual communications, nursing, IT programming and radiology, to name a few.

Source: Amazon