This would increase the number of the company’s employees in Germany to more than 18,000 by the end of the year. The world's largest online retailer and provider of cloud services employs some 560,000 people worldwide.

Many of these new jobs in Germany will cater to Amazon’s expanding location in Berlin. The positions are meant to focus on research and development as well as provide support for services such as AmazonFresh, Prime Video and the assistance software Alexa.

Amazon has been at odds with the German public workers’ union Verdi over employee conditions in the group's logistics centres.

For years, Verdi had been calling for a collective agreement for Amazon employees which align with the conditions of the retail and mail order sector.

The company states that it pays its workers the upper end of what is usual for similar positions.

In its Friday announcement, Amazon also pointed out the benefits it offers such as free life insurance, disability insurance and employee shares.

Last week hundreds of people employed by Amazon protested at a demonstration organized by Verdi in which the megagroup’s founder Jeff Bezos was due to receive a prize.

Bezos, who is the richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine, said he was "very proud of our working conditions" in response to the gathering.