Asian migrant laborers who paid predatory recruiting fees say global mega-corporation has not kept its promise to pay them restitution
Warehouse laborers from Asia say the world’s second largest employer, Amazon, has failed to live up to its promises to compensate them for financial abuses tied to their work for the online retailer in Saudi Arabia.
In 2023, Amazon promised to reimburse recruitment fees to its contract workers from Asia who had been forced to pay large sums to secure jobs at the company’s warehouses in Saudi Arabia. Since then, Amazon has paid more than $2.6m in compensation to roughly 950 workers from multiple countries.
But two years later, many migrants are still waiting for their recruiting fees to be repaid – and they are not sure if they will ever get financial redress. Thirty-six of the 67 workers interviewed by the Guardian for this story said they had not received payment from Amazon even though they paid stiff fees to get placed at jobs at the company’s Saudi operations.
“I want to tell Amazon: If you want to return money, give it to us quickly,” said Rameshwar Sharma, a worker from Nepal who said he has yet to receive compensation. “Don’t make fools of us. We’re not begging. We just want justice.”
