Amazon, hotel chains among firms vowing to hire 20,000 refugees

Amazon and several hotel chains are among dozens of companies that are pledging to hire more than 20,000 refugees fleeing conflict and persecution around the world.

A release from the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a nonprofit that advocates for the international business community to embrace refugees, on Tuesday said 45 major companies have committed to hire 22,725 refugees to full-time positions in the U.S. 

Tent Partnership organized the U.S. Business Summit on Refugees to bring together some of the country’s largest employers to create and plan to hire and train the refugees over the next three years. The release states that the companies’ commitments to support refugees are the most significant on record. 

Amazon says it plans to hire at least 5,000 refugees in the next three years, while Hilton and Marriott International will each hire 1,500. Hyatt committed to hire 500 in that time span. 

Other major companies promising to hire refugees include Tyson Foods, which will hire 2,500; Pfizer, which will hire 500; and the investment firm Blackstone, which will hire 1,500 in the U.S. and 2,000 internationally in the next three years.

“These companies will benefit from welcoming these hard-working, loyal, and resilient individuals – but my hope is that this is only the beginning,” said Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Tent. “As refugee crises start to fade from the headlines, companies must recognize that hiring refugees is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do.” 

The release states that almost 100,000 Afghans fleeing the Taliban’s rule, 100,000 Ukrainians escaping Russia’s invasion and up to 125,000 refugees from other parts of the world will arrive in the U.S. by the end of 2022. 

The release states that business leadership is essential for helping them adjust to new lives as they often face challenges in finding new work, like language barriers and a lack of professional networks. 

The hiring commitments should generate more than $900 million overall in income for the refugees each year while filling “key” labor gaps and boosting the national economy, it added.  

Companies like LinkedIn and Ipsos have also promised to train 13,850 refugees to give them a better understanding of the U.S. job market and help them develop skills and grow their networks, according to the release.