Online retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) says it is planning to create 600 new technology jobs in Toronto.
In a news release, Amazon said the new jobs will be filled in the next five years, and noted that 800 "Amazonians" already work for the company in Toronto. The 600 new jobs at Amazon will be in fields such as software development, machine learning and cloud computing, said the company.
The Toronto offices are one of Amazon's 18 "tech hubs" across North America. The company also has a number of warehouses in the Greater Toronto Area. Canada’s largest city was on the short list to host the company's highly coveted second headquarters, but eventually lost out to New York City and Arlington, Virginia.
Toronto Mayor John Tory said the expanded Toronto office and the hundreds of new jobs were not a "consolation prize" for losing the Amazon headquarters earlier this year. "I look at this as a wonderful day . . . but I know that bigger and better things lie ahead, in terms of more jobs and more people," he told CBC News.
