On Thursday, Amazon announced plans to build a second head quarters in North America.

The new headquarters is expected to house 50,000 employees, equal in size to the existing headquarters based in Seattle.

The company plans to invest more than $5 billion in construction and operation of Amazon HQ2.

Photo Credit: Amazon

On Thursday, it provided interested government leaders instructions on how they can put their city into the running  for Amazon HQ2.

“We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our  Seattle  headquarters,” said  Jeff Bezos,  Amazon  founder and CEO. “Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”

Photo Credit: Amazon

Between 2010 to 2016, Amazon estimates its investments in Seattle contributed to an additional $38 billion to the city's economy.

When selecting a city, the company is considering metropolitan areas with more than one million people, communities that are seen as stable and business-friendly and can retain strong technical talent.

Choosing to make HQ2 a public process is not a common thing, but it's certainly garnering heaps of public attention. 

"We want to find a city that is excited to work with us and where our customers, employees, and the community can all benefit," stated a spokesperson for Amazon.

The company also expects to mostly hire all new teams and executives, while providing some existing HQ1 staff the option of moving to HQ2.

Amazon has 380,000 employees worldwide.

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