Amazon shutters NJ warehouse after rise in COVID cases

Will Amazon's Alabama warehouse workers be organized? (Photo: Flickr/Tony Webster)

Amazon (NASDQ: AMZN) has closed a warehouse in New Jersey until Dec. 26 after an increase in asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 among workers, the company confirmed to CNBC.

Warehouse workers across the country have been at greater risk of infection than many work groups because of the need to keep supplies moving and work in the same building. Amazon previously said 20,000 workers were infected since the start of the pandemic in mid-March through mid-September. Amazon has previously shuttered other facilities to contain outbreaks, mostly at the beginning of the year.

About 100 Amazon workers at a facility in New York walked off the job in March over concerns about worker safety and the company’s precautions against spread of the disease.

Last week Amazon wrote to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asking that warehouse workers be classified as essential and that they be designated for front-of-the-line access to new COVID vaccines now being distributed. 

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

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Eric Kulisch

Eric is the Parcel and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves. An award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering the logistics sector, Eric spent nearly two years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Automotive News, where he focused on regulatory and policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, mobility, fuel economy and safety. He has won two regional Gold Medals and a Silver Medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for government and trade coverage, and news analysis. He was voted best for feature writing and commentary in the Trade/Newsletter category by the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was runner up for News Journalist and Supply Chain Journalist of the Year in the Seahorse Freight Association's 2024 journalism award competition. In December 2022, Eric was voted runner up for Air Cargo Journalist. He won the group's Environmental Journalist of the Year award in 2014 and was the 2013 Supply Chain Journalist of the Year. As associate editor at American Shipper Magazine for more than a decade, he wrote about trade, freight transportation and supply chains. He has appeared on Marketplace, ABC News and National Public Radio to talk about logistics issues in the news. Eric is based in Vancouver, Washington. He can be reached for comments and tips at ekulisch@freightwaves.com