Amazon Web Services wants to hire over 200 staff over the next few years for its New Zealand region, the cloud computing and storage giant's chief executive Adam Selipsky told Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern when the two met in Seattle.
This is in addition to the 150 staff AWS employs in New Zealand currently in Auckland and Wellington.
AWS-commissioned research points to around one million New Zealanders or just over a third of the workforce needing digital skills training by next year.
The company offers free courses for unemployed and underemployed individuals who want to learn cloud skills
The NZ region is part of an AWS investment plan valued at $7.5 billion in total, with the data centres being powered by 100 per cent renewable energy at launch.
Microsoft is also building an Azure region in New Zealand, and investors are planning a hyper scale cloud facility in North Makarewa, Invercargill.
All in all, AWS said the NZ region is estimated to create some 1000 jobs over and add $10.8 billion to the country's gross domestic product over the next 15 years.
AWS said it has partnered in New Zealand with Consegna, Datacom, Deloitte, Lancom, Spark Business Group, with others to come.
Local companies onboard the Amazon cloud include Air New Zealand, Department of Conservation, Education Perfect, Halter, New Zealand Ministry of Health, Orion Health, Sharesies, The Clinician, TVNZ, UneeQ, University of Auckland, Vector, Vodafone and Xero.
