Amazon’s veteran ranks swell past 17,500

Amazon says the number of veterans and military spouses in its workforce exceeds 17,500, putting the company well ahead of its goal of scooping up 25,000 people in the orbit of the armed services by 2021.

Chief Executive Jeff Bezos laid out that target during a visit to the White House last year, signing onto a program designed for private-sector employers committed to providing more support for military families. It’s unclear how many veterans Amazon’s ranks held at the time of Bezos’ pledge. In January, the company said it employed more than 10,000 veterans.

The company’s hiring spree since, to staff its fast-growing warehousing and logistics network as well as its ever-growing Seattle headquarters, added 108,000 employees worldwide, at least 7,000 of them U.S. veterans or their spouses.

That includes employees brought on through a range of programs aimed at training veterans for technical or leadership roles. Another initiative, aimed at military spouses, deals with customer support roles designed to enable the employee to work from home and follow moves mandated by a family member’s military service.

Amazon now says it hopes to bolster its ranks by an additional 10,000 veterans by 2021.

Amazon at the end of September employed 541,900 people worldwide, including workers at Whole Foods Market who are excluded from the veterans tally.