E-commerce giant Amazon plans to create about 3,000 jobs in Spain over the next three years, with 1,000 people being hired at the company's expanded warehouse outside Madrid and 2,000 others getting jobs at a centre planned for a site near Barcelona.
Sources close to the company say the company is more than doubling the size of its only fulfilment centre in Spain, from 32,000 square metres to 77,000 sq metres, and increasing its processing capacity from 250,000 to 500,000 orders per day.
The expansion is expected to be completed before Christmas 2016.
The Madrid centre, which hired 40 people when it opened its doors in 2012, currently employs about 850 people.
Amazon's plan is to hire about 300 people annually over three years as orders rise at the expanded facility.
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Meanwhile, it plans to build a centre at El Prat del Llobregat, a city near Barcelona, to meet growing demand in Spain and southern Europe.
Amazon signed an option to buy public property covering 150,000 sq metres for about 30 million euros ($A44.60 million).
The e-commerce giant has until June to exercise the option, but the deadline could be extended, sources with knowledge about the project said, adding that the fulfilment centre would create about 2,000 jobs over three years.
Amazon's goal is to have the centre operating by the 2017 northern autumn.
