Online shopping giant Amazon has offered to sponsor its US workers' education in a new attempt to attract and retain people. As they strive to maintain their staff amidst the labour shortage in the industry, the company said they would invest US$1.2 billion in the plan, which will be offered to all 750,000 of its frontline workers.

Following in the footsteps of other big firms such as Walmart and Target who have also offered to fund their workers education. Amazon’s investment plan will not be limited to higher education, but also branch out to high school diplomas, job-career training and English language courses. While the company already offers a wide range of in-house education programmes, the new plan will actually sponsor employees' high school and college education, and even proficiency certifications.

Dave Clark, the head of worldwide consumer at Amazon said: “Amazon is now the largest job creator in the US, and we know that investing in free skills training for our teams can have a huge impact for hundreds of thousands of families across the country.”

Education is just the latest carrot that US firms are dangling to entice employees back to the workforce amid a countrywide shortage of frontline staff and essential workers. They have already started raising wages and offering bonuses to workers, some even encouraging teenagers as young as 14 and 15 years old to join the workforce to mitigate the labour crunch.