Late last month Amazon notified the Maryland Department of Labor that it will be closing two of its distribution center in the Baltimore area – a 154,000,000 square foot Hanover depot that it opened in 2020 and a 272,500 square foot warehouse in Essex that debuted in 2017. According to the 60-day WARN notice (Work Adjustment and Retraining Notification), both fulfillment centers will close in October 25.
The decision to shutter both facilities, which serve as last-mile delivery stations, comes at a time when the Seattle-based juggernaut is evaluating its real estate holdings. According to MWPVL International, a company which follows Amazon’s real estate portfolio, the fastest growing business in world has closed or canceled plans to open 42 warehouses totaling almost 25 million square feet of usable space. The MWPVL report also noted that Amazon has delayed opening an additional 21 locations, totaling nearly 28 million square feet. However, MWLPV added that the primarily online merchant still continues to open new facilities.
“There remains some serious cutting to do before year-end – in North America and the rest of the world,” said Marc Wulfraat, MWPVL’s founder and president. “Having said this, they continue to go live with new facilities this year at an astonishing pace.”
According to Amazon spokesman Maria Boschetti: “We weigh a variety of factors when deciding where to develop future sites to best serve customers. We have dozens of fulfillment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations under construction and evolving around the world.”
In order to meet high demand during the pandemic, Amazon was opening a new U.S. warehouse about every 24 hours. Earlier this year, as purchasing drifted back to more normalized levels, CEO Andy Jassy said that his company would look to unload excess warehouse space and shrink it employee base. That has been evidenced recently as the company’s workforce dipped to 1.52 million (a drop of approximately 100,000 jobs), the largest quarterly contraction in its 28-year history. Currently, Amazon operates about 1,200 depots in the U.S.
According to the company, all 353 employees who are impacted by the Hanover and Essex shutterings will be offered other jobs at other Amazon facilities in Maryland of which there will be 13 after the closings.
