It’s good to be a banker, at least according to LinkedIn, which this week named the big four banks the top four places to work in Australia.
But while the finance sector may have dominated the top of the list, retail was also well represented, with Amazon Australia, Woolworths and Wesfarmers all appearing among the top 25 companies people want to work for in Australia.
Amazon Australia ranked 10th, Woolworths 11th and Wesfarmers 15th.
The professional networking site based the ranking on data around user behaviour, including interest in the company, engagement with the company’s employees, job demand and employee retention. Companies needed to employ at least 500 people to be eligible.
The network pointed to the ease of changing careers at Amazon, with more than 10,000 employees having shifted jobs in the last year, as one reason people may find the business attractive.
Woolworths, on the other hand, was praised for its initiative to provide employment for refugees from Syria and the Middle East, while Wesfarmers benefits from having a wide range of operations, with a workforce that services approximately 1065 retail outlets.
Woolworths was praised for its agile methodologies and analytics, with its sales, support, and operations divisions seeing the most new hires compared to the prior year. Wesfarmers saw these same division grow over 2018, but also saw growth in business intelligence.
Amazon vice president of specialty recruiting Jennifer Cast said in a blog post that she was “constantly impressed by the broad range of experiences and depth of passion our candidates demonstrate”.
“Millions of talented people apply every year to tens of thousands of roles across Amazon. They are excited to discuss Amazon leadership principles in action and are eager to join our customer-obsessed teams,” she said.
Amazon has been criticised in the past for treatment of its warehouse workers, who, in some cases, are employed by third parties that don’t offer the same benefits to employees as the e-commerce giant itself.
The retailer came under fire in Australia earlier this year for employing a large number of casual workers, and has since committed to transitioning many of these workers to full-time permanent roles.
The shift has begun at the company’s fulfilment centre in Dandenong South, Victoria, and will spread through its retail operations in Australia moving forward. Casual staff will continue to be used to deal with shifts in consumer demand and handle peak periods.
Wesfarmers and Woolworths have been contacted for comment.
