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    Amazon Career Choice Program offers tuition reimbursement in 'well-paying' and 'high demand' careers

    Amazon Career Choice Program offers tuition reimbursement in 'well-paying' and 'high demand' careers

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    It's not uncommon for major corporations to offer their employees some sort of career training perks or tuition reimbursement, and Amazon's making a very public showing of its new program today.

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    Amazon box (STOCK)
    Amazon box (STOCK)

    It's not uncommon for major corporations to offer their employees career training perks or tuition reimbursement, and Amazon's making a very public showing of its new program today. On the homepage of Amazon.com, the company is detailing its new Career Choice Program — a program for fulfillment center employees that offers reimbursement for education in a very specific way. Amazon has identified a number of careers that it identifies as "well-paying" and "In-demand" and will offer its reimbursement for only those specific fields. As what careers Amazon is focusing on, the company specifically listed aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technology, medical laboratory science, dental hygiene, and nursing. The reimbursement value is for up to 95 percent of tuition and related expenses, and it caps out at $2,000 a year for four years total.

    In addition to only reimbursing studies in certain fields, there's a whole host of other restrictions — the reimbursement may not be applied to Bachelors or Master's Degree coursework, and employees must work for the company for a full three uninterrupted years before taking advantage of the benefits. While it's nice that Amazon is encouraging its employees to get educated in fields that don't necessarily have to further their careers with the company (and $2,000 per year is nothing to sneeze at), it's certainly a little odd to see an employee-only program so publicly displayed on the company's homepage. A more cynical look at the situation could suggest that Amazon's trying to show the public how well it treats its employees despite ongoing concerns with workers suffering heat-related injuries in its warehouses