Amazon boosts investment in delivery service program

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced on Thursday another investment of over $2.1 billion in its Delivery Service Partner program. The e-commerce giant said the funds will be utilized for safety programs, rate cards, training, value-added services, incentives. The company’s investments in the small business delivery program now total $12.3 billion over the last six years.

“To help DSPs provide greater wages and benefits to drivers, we’ll invest an additional $660 million over the next year in DSP rate card increases and bonuses. We anticipate that our investment will help DSPs increase driver pay to a national average of nearly $22.00 per hour, depending on their location, which is a 7% increase over last year.”

Many DSPs already pay their drivers more than $22 per hour.

On the safety front, Amazon (AMZN) said it will use AI and technology tools to identify risk characteristics for 200 million roads, as well as provide 18 million safety cues for drivers by the end of this year