I guess this is added global workforce, not US.

I'd imagine the vast majority of that was in the US, since while Amazon operates in many countries, in most it's only a pale shadow of the US juggernaut. For example, in Singapore it's nearly useless for anything except books, and even there local inventory is pretty sad.

Don't underestimate Europe, we have a population of about 500 Million people and Amazon is big here too.

Nowhere near as big as in the US though, and it's only active in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy[1]. They have a total of 341 million people. In 2019, Amazon employed 600 000 people in the US, and only 115 000 in Europe[2].

[1]: The Swedish site did just open, but it's rubbish. [2]: https://ir.aboutamazon.com/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/2019...

For what it's worth, I'm in Portugal and have ordered from several amazon sites. Mostly it's from the Spanish one which gives free shipping on orders of 29€.

Amazon is only in 7 countries in Europe. However, Amazon is in China and India. Both countries have a larger population than the US and EU combined.

Why are they in only 7 countries ?

Is it because they won't likely to sucseed ? Or is it just a matter of time until they expand to more countries ?

Because why setup a warehouse in Denmark when workers are half the price in Germany and shipping from Germany to Denmark is only marginally more expensive? I suspect the same is true for other countries like The Netherlands and Belgium.

They ship throughout Europe from those 7 countries but serve most, if not all, of Europe.

In fairness, not all the employees in a town work for one company, and Amazon isn't all there is now in that hypothetical town.

The point is that the retail service industry was a big source of "bullshit jobs" that America needs to a) keep wealth distribution reasonable^, and b) keep people believing that success is all about hard work and gumption&.

   ^ There are differing opinions on what is "reasonable".
   & It sometimes is, but is usually about circumstance.

javajosh, you seem to have a very strange model of the motives of managers in retail, a famously low-margin business.

450k employees globally, not just in the US.