Amazon aims to hire 150,000 holiday season workers

Amazon announced plans Monday to recruit 150,000 seasonal workers for the end of year holidays, as the online retail giant aims to navigate global supply chain disruptions and a tight hiring market.

These hires would be on top of plans announced in September to bring in another 165,000 employees for the online retail giant, which is using hiring bonuses of up to $3,000 to try to attract workers.

The seasonal jobs are timed to help with the holiday shopping season while providing flexibility for permanent employees, the company said in a statement.

The additional hires would help put away products and prepare packages for shipment.

In the September announcement, said Amazon said it was looking for 125,000 people to work in its warehouses and transportation network, and 40,000 for office jobs.

Amazon, which has benefited from the boom in online sales since the start of the pandemic, hired 500,000 people in 2020 and had 1.3 million employees worldwide at the end of last year.

The group is embarking on a massive new wave of hiring along with other major retail and logistics companies.

Retail giant Walmart in late September announced its intention to hire 150,000 people in the run-up to the holiday season to work in its stores, most of these positions intended to be permanent and full-time.

Rival Target also said in September it would hire 100,000 seasonal workers for its stores and 30,000 in its warehouses.

Economists increasingly worry that overloaded supply chains will impact the global economic recovery from the Covid-19 downturn.

US retailers also face shortages of front-line workers, which could make it challenging to hire enough seasonal employees and could push up wages.

© 2021 AFP