Most retailers have good cause to worry about the long-term implications of the Brexit vote. Labor costs, shipping and everything in between could get more expensive with a less porous border between the U.K. and the rest of Europe.
Like many times before, though, Amazon appears to have escaped the worst of the fallout.
According to Reuters, Amazon has yet to see any impact to its U.K.-based sales as a result of the Brexit vote. Doug Gurr, U.K. country manager at Amazon, told assembled reporters on Wednesday (July 6) that, while the company’s British-based operations were humming along in every degree they had been before the Brexit, it’s still too soon to declare that Amazon is immune from the problems that are mounting for other retailers.
“There’s a lot of details to be worked out,” Gurr said. “We don’t know exactly what the regulatory environment will be; we don’t know exactly what the terms of the new separation will be.”
While there’s a measured degree of certainty in any retail operation in Europe right now, Amazon is confident enough to move forward with plans to hire 1,000 new employees in the U.K. by the end of 2016. That would bring Amazon’s U.K. employee footprint to 15,500 people, and with such a large employee base, it’s reasonable to expect some issues with E.U./U.K. citizenship status post-Brexit. According to Gurr, though, Amazon is moving forward with business as usual.
“What we’ve said to all of our teams is: ‘As far as we’re concerned, nothing changes,'” Gurr said. “We’re still part of the E.U. as of today; we’ll continue to operate on that basis.”
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