Amazon made a surprise announcement Friday during the opening of its newest fulfillment center in Carteret.

The online retail giant plans to open two additional centers in Middlesex County and one in Gloucester County this year.

The three new locations include Cranbury, Edison and Logan Township and are expected to create 2,500 new jobs for the state.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during Friday’s ceremony praised the state's partnership with Amazon that started in 2012.

“If Amazon doesn't have a great workforce here every day, if we can't meet the goals and aspirations, then they'll leave,” Christie said. “In the end, the power of this state is the people who live here.”

Christie also encouraged workers to join what he called “the next stage of growth in the economy.”

“Amazon is leading on the technological changes in our country that lots of people see as destructive to a workforce,” he said. “They said that back in the industrial revolution also.”

The 800,000-square-foot facility is located in the 8,000 block of Industrial Avenue in Carteret. Amazon said its new center gives the company the chance to show off what it considers to be innovative technologies and processes that will help deliver customer orders on a daily basis.

“The robots are helping associates pick, pack and ship customer orders,” says Amazon spokesperson Lauren Lynch.

The Carteret center, which is Amazon’s largest so far in the Garden State, has already hired 2,000 employees.

When all three of the newly announced facilities are opened, the total number of Amazon fulfillment centers in New Jersey will be 10.