Why Amazon should choose Newark for HQ2, nonprofit says

Newark is one of 20 cities
still in the running for HQ2.
Sean
Pavone/Shutterstock

• Amazon‘s announcement
  of the choice for its second headquarters, HQ2,
  is imminent, and at least one organization says it would be
  wise to choose Newark, New Jersey. 
• According to a recent
  report by JUST Capital, a nonprofit organization that
  ranks companies on issues like job creation, community support,
  and environmental pollution, Amazon should make a socially
  conscious choice for its second headquarters if it wants to
  improve its reputation. 
• Given that Amazon has promised to bring as many as 50,000
  high-paying jobs with HQ2, the organization argues that the
  company should select a city where unemployment is relatively
  high, such as Newark.

Amazon’s announcement for
HQ2 is imminent, and some experts say it would be wise to choose
Newark, New Jersey. 

According to a recent
report from JUST Capital, a nonprofit organization
that ranks companies on issues like job creation, community
support, and environmental pollution,
Amazon should make a socially conscious choice
for its next headquarters if it wants to improve its
reputation. 

Amazon has promised to invest over $5 billion and
accommodate as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs with its new
headquarters. 

These new jobs could be particularly powerful in cities
where access to employment is limited, JUST Capital
argues. Enter Newark, a city where the
unemployment rates among people of color are 19.4%, the highest
of the HQ2 finalists. The median income in Newark is
around $33,000, and the poverty rate sits at 29%,
according to
the report.

Choosing Newark, combined with improved worker pay and
treatment, reduced environmental impact, and more charitable
giving, could help Amazon’s overall JUST Capital ranking shift
from No. 55 to No. 9 in a list of more than 900 businesses that
the organization tracks in the US, it said. 

Amazon’s reputation is a hot topic at the moment. In
September, the retailer dropped to second place in
the Reputation
Institute’s annual RepTrak ranking for the retail
sector. It fell from 18th to 23rd place in the ranking of global
companies.

Amazon
has taken numerous hits to its reputation over the past few
months, including 
attacks
from politicians and activists over the company’s treatment
of workers. 

The e-commerce giant has taken steps to restore its image
in the public eye, most notably by raising its
minimum wage to $15 an hour earlier this month. 

“We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we
wanted to do, and decided we want to lead,” CEO Jeff Bezos said
in a prepared
statement on October 2. 

Amazon has said it will announce its HQ2 decision by the
end of the year.