Amazon now world’s third most valuable company, to add 2,000 jobs in France

With a market cap of $702.5 billion, Amazon has become the third most valuable company in the world, racing past Microsoft, which has a market cap of $699.2 billion. This is just as it plans to add 2,000 jobs in its operations in France.

According to a report in The New York Post, Amazon stock surged 2.6 percent on Wednesday, taking the company’s market cap ahead of Microsoft for the first time.

Apple tops the list with $849.2 billion market cap, followed by Google’s parent company Alphabet at $745.1 billion. With $521.5 billion market cap, Facebook is at the fifth spot.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, is now the world’s richest man, not just at present, but of all time.

Both Bloomberg and Forbes have put Bezos on top of their billionaire lists. Bloomberg said Bezos’ net worth reached $106 billion while Forbes put it at $105 billion, Xinhua news agency reported.

Amazon has also declared its plans to create new 2,000 permanent jobs this year in France with an eye to strengthening the French economy.

The company, which already added 1,500 jobs in France last year, is seeking workers to staff its distribution centers and sorting centers. Further jobs will be created in delivery services. The expansion will increase the retailer’s French workforce by more than a third and bring its total number of employees to more than 7,500 by the end of 2018.

“The French economic context gives us confidence and encourages us to invest,” Frederic Duval, head of Amazon France, said in an interview. “We have more customers, so more business, and as we have more business, we hire more. We think this level activity is sustainable, thus we’re hiring people with permanent contracts.”

The plans are the latest sign that France’s long-awaited economic recovery is starting to generate jobs. France’s unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter, its lowest in almost nine years, national statistics office Insee said Thursday.

Duval said there is “absolutely” no link between the job creation and a settlement reached this month with French tax authorities. “That problem is now settled and we no longer have any dispute with the state in this matter,” he said.

Amazon has invested more than 2 billion euros ($2.48 billion) in France since 2010.