Jobs at Apple: New engineering hub in Seattle plans to hire 2,000 employees
Apple has unveiled plans to open large, new offices in Seattle, about a block from Amazon's main campus in South Lake Union.
Apple
Apple plans to add some 2,000 software and hardware jobs in Seattle within the next five years and will hire 200 people this year, according to the Seattle Times.
The new office space is spread across two 12-story buildings that are currently being built at 333 Dexter.
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Apple announced the new office and hiring plans with Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, who highlighted that the city didn't need to offer the tax breaks that other cities came up with when Amazon was shopping around for a location for its HQ2.
Durkan said she was "interested in talking about HQ2 – a different HQ2".
"We're able to have companies come locate here at this scale without us having to offer those kind of incentives," she said.
Apple's presence in Seattle will still be relatively small compared with Amazon's, which employs 40,000 people at its campus.
About a 15-minute drive from Amazon, Microsoft has its sprawling and recently revamped campus in Redmond, where it has over 50,000 employees. Microsoft earlier this year announced a $500m fund to address homelessness in Seattle and create more affordable housing.
Durkan acknowledge the affordable housing challenges that Seattle faces, which some attribute to a rise in high-paying tech jobs.
Facebook earlier this year took a 13-year lease on an 11-story building in the Seattle area.
Apple vice president of global real estate Kristina Raspe said Seattle will become a "key engineering hub" for Apple.
Apple unveiled plans for the Seattle office in December as part of a $1bn investment in new offices in San Diego and Culver City, coupled with expansions of existing offices in Austin, Pittsburgh, New York and Boulder, Colorado.
The iPhone-maker currently employs 90,000 people in the US and plans to add a further 20,000 jobs by 2023.
More on Apple, Google, Microsoft, and jobs plans
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- Why Amazon's move to split HQ2 between New York City and Northern Virginia makes sense
- A peek inside Avanade's new wireless Seattle headquarters TechRepublic
- Microsoft pledges $500M to build low-cost homes in Seattle CNET