LinkedIn names Amazon as the No. 1 company for professional career development

A retail giant is the most desirable workplace in the U.S. for the second year in a row.

Amazon took the top spot-on LinkedIn’s Top Companies list, annual ranking of the U.S. companies that offer the best places for professionals to grow their careers and develop skills, using data from the networking platform’s 810 million members.

“These are the companies that are offering stability in our ever-changing world of work — the ones that are not only attracting workers, but retaining them,” LinkedIn stated.

Rounding out the top five: Alphabet (Google); Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Walmart. Only two other retailers cracked the ranking: CVS Health (#15) and Target (#26). See end of article for a complete listing of all 50 companies on the list.

The methodology evaluates how companies are able to attract and retain the best talent-including promotions, opportunities for employees of all backgrounds to gain new skills, gender diversity, and even how much recruiters from other companies search for employees currently working at Amazon. To be eligible, companies must have had at least 500 employees as of Dec. 31, 2021, and attrition can be no higher than 10% over the methodology time period, based on LinkedIn data. Companies with layoffs during that time that amount to more than 10% of their workforce, based on public announcements, are also ineligible.

In a release, Amazon noted that, in 2021, it created more than 200,000 jobs in the U.S, where the company currently employs more than 1.1 million people. As part of its pledge to help upskill the American workforce, the company recently announced a commitment to fully fund college tuition, books, and fees, as well as high school diplomas, GEDs, college preparatory courses, and English as a Second Language (ESL) proficiency certifications, for its front-line hourly employees through the Career Choice program. The program is part of Amazon’s pledge to invest more than $1.2 billion to upskill more than 300,000 employees by 2025.

Amazon also noted that its jobs come with an average starting pay of $18 an hour, more than twice the federal minimum wage, along with a comprehensive benefits package.

“We’re proud to have been named number one by LinkedIn, and know there’s even more to do,” said Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior VP of people experience and technology at Amazon. “That’s why we keep listening, investing and inventing to make the employee experience even better. This is a place where people come to build on behalf of our customers, and together we're determined to make every day better for our employees and our customers."

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Click here is this year’s 50 #LinkedInTopCompanies in the U.S.