Over 250,000 refugees will be hired by Amazon, Starbucks, Adidas, and 40 other major brands

Some of the world's largest and most recognized brands have pledged to hire over 250,000 refugees in Europe, to be trained and offered a job, in the next following three years. The companies - which include Amazon, Accenture, and Adidas - have committed to hiring and training the refugees and, when possible, offer them permanent jobs in their companies. 

The ambitious commitment, announced on the eve of World Refugee Day at the Tent European Business Summit, marks “the most significant set of business commitments ever made to advance the economic integration of refugees,” said the Tent Partnership for Refugees, the network behind the summit.

Leading brands, including Adidas, Accenture, Amazon, Hilton, PepsiCo, and Starbucks, have committed to directly hiring more than 13,000 refugees and training more than 86,000.

Amazon will hire over 5,000 refugees in Europe 

The e-commerce titan Amazon has pledged to hire over 5,000 refugees in Europe in the span of three years. The promise was made together with over 40 companies. Together, they will hire, train or connect to work with 250,000 refugees. At least 13,680 of them will get jobs directly in the 40 companies.

Among the refugee's Amazon will hire are Ukrainian women who have had to flee. An estimated 12 million people have fled from Ukraine. Nearly half of them are living in Europe. It is the continent’s most significant movement of refugees since World War II.

"In terms of employment, we help them with legal fees, counseling, mentorship, training programs, the upskill, language, linguistics, everything, anything we can," said J Ofori Agboka, who leads Amazon’s Human Resources for worldwide operations.