With the holiday season in full swing, Woodburn’s new $500 million, 3.8 million-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center is quietly running like the North Pole.

Since its opening last summer, the shopping season from Black Friday through Christmas has been circled on the calendar for PDX8, the Woodburn Amazon facility, as it ramped up staffing and training in anticipation of the peak holiday season.

In preparation for the holiday rush, the facility has doubled its number of employees to roughly 3,500 in the past few months and is processing over 30,000 items an hour every day, According to Jose Galvez, senior operations manager at PDX8.

“ We were talking about like tens of thousands of units and shipments going through our building a day, and we went from that to tens of thousands in like an hour,” Galvez said. “It’s to the point now during peak season where we’re doing hundreds of thousands of orders a day. It’s incredible when you think about the community coming together to do that.”

While some of the new hires for the peak season are temporary, Galvez said many are permanent positions. Additionally, with the surge of open positions at the Woodburn facility for the holidays, PDX8 also got a significant number of transfers who live locally but previously worked at Amazon fulfillment centers farther away.

“We had folks that were traveling quite some distance and to be able to transfer to a building that’s really close to home and in the community … is super cool,” Galvez said. “Especially talking to the associates firsthand, they’re like, ‘yeah, this is life changing.;”

During the holiday rush, Galvez says communication has been key for operations. Supervisors have been preparing the crew for longer days and making sure everyone is checking in on each other and taking breaks down the chain of command.

When asked to describe the feeling of getting through the facility’s first holiday season, Galvez said he and his fellow supervisors are pleasantly surprised with how smoothly operations have run.

“ I think the best way I could describe it is exciting and unexpected. I think we’re all just super happy with the turnout,” Galvez said. “Going into the launch of the building, we had expectations of how much volume we were going to produce and how many hires we were going to get through the doors. And I think we were pretty surprised with what we were able to achieve and make happen.”

A peek inside the facility

Inside the five-story Woodburn Amazon warehouse, the scale of operations is almost impossible to grasp. Miles of conveyor belts move products in every direction, while thousands of robots glide in precise patterns across the warehouse floor.

Amazon leaders emphasize that being “a good neighbor” in Woodburn is part of their long-term plan. The company contributed $300,000 to help the city purchase a new transit bus, invested in intersection improvements — including a significant roundabout near the facility — and donated $1 million towards the new turf soccer field at Legion Park.

Since the grand opening, the Woodburn Amazon has also sponsored the city’s Fiesta Mexicana parade and donated a total of $45,000 to organizations Love Inc., Ray of Hope and most recently Love Santa’s holiday food drive.