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Amazon (AMZN), which has come under intense scrutiny for unfavorable labor conditions at its fulfillment centers, announced a new worker-education program this week to help improve the careers of some of the company's most dedicated employees.

The largest U.S. online retailer plans to reimburse its full-time hourly workers for vocational training at an accredited school. Selected employees would be given $2,000 a year for four years.

The caveat lies in the program requirements. In order to apply and participate, workers must have been with the company for at least three consecutive years.

Amazon posted details about its program on its retail site Monday:

"At Amazon, we like to pioneer, we like to invent, and we're not willing to do things the normal way if we can figure out a better way. It can be difficult in this economy to have the flexibility and financial resources to teach yourself new skills. So, for people who've been with us as little as three years, we're offering to pre-pay 95% of the cost of courses such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, nursing, and many other fields."

Amazon's Career Choice Program: Good for Workers or P.R. Stunt?

Showcasing the company's new education program on the Amazon homepage has some critics wondering whether this program is nothing more than an attempt to improve the company's image.

Will Oremus of Slate is skeptical and wrote this week:

"There's something puzzling about the company's use of its massively trafficked front page to broadcast this program. In an economy full of unemployed people desperate for work, does Amazon really have to blast all of its millions of customers to find a few hundred new applicants?"

Link:
Amazon’s New Worker Education Program: Good Business or PR Stunt?