Ozon will offer work in warehouses to more than 500 convicts – Kommersant

Until the end of 2023, the Ozon marketplace will offer work in its fulfillment centers in Rostov-on-Don, Kazan and the Moscow region to more than 500 convicts with a mild regime of serving sentences as part of the Ozon Without Conviction social project. Thus, the company intends to help convicts with social adaptation and increase their employment prospects in the future.

From press release Ozon follows that only those who are convicted for the first time and live in correctional centers and settlement colonies can become participants in the project. “The new hires will be taking orders for customers and processing returned orders at the warehouses. The project does not apply to the courier service and points of issue of orders,” the company said.

In total, by the end of this year, the company plans to employ more than 500 convicts in different regions. However, the proportion of convicts will not exceed 10% of the number of employees of each warehouse. The message of the marketplace notes that after being released from correctional facilities, participants in the social project will be able to continue working in the warehouse or be selected for other vacancies in the company.

It is specified that the social project “Ozon without condemnation” is a continuation of the company’s pilot project with the Federal Penitentiary Service of St. Petersburg, launched in the fall of 2022. Then Ozon employed several dozen people sentenced to forced labor in its regional fulfillment center. Six out of ten employees, after being released from forced labor, remained employees of the company’s warehouses.

Milena Kostereva