Amazon is planning a new expansion in Austin, but says it isn’t connected to HQ2

• Amazon told the Austin Statesman that it is expanding in Austin, Texas — where it already employs over 6,600 people.
• Amazon will be creating 800 tech-focused jobs in the city.
• The company says the decision has nothing to do with its reversal of its planned HQ2 expansion in New York.

One month after Amazon announced it was cancelling its HQ2 plans in New York, the company says it’s planning an 800-employee strong expansion in Austin, Texas, the Austin Statesman reports.

According to the Statesman, the employees will be focused on Amazon’s software and hardware engineering, research science and cloud computing divisions.

Austin has a growing reputation as a tech hub, and the Statesman notes that it already employs over 6,600 people there. Apple also announced in December that it is spending $1 billion on a new campus in Austin which will house 5,000 employees.

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Amazon’s Austin site lead Terry Leeper said that the decision to expand its operations in Austin had been in the works for years, and was not influenced by the firm’s cancellation of the planned HQ2 expansion in New York — which was originally slated to bring 25,000 jobs to the city — on February 14.

Austin was itself on the shortlist for HQ2, and was overlooked in favour of New York and Arlington, Virginia.

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce told the Statesman that Amazon will receive no financial incentives for its expansion. Financial incentives were a point of contention from local activists and politicians in Amazon’s planned New York expansion.

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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton)