Amazon is hiring 150,000 U.S. workers for holiday shopping season, with perks like a $3,000 signing bonus and additional $3 per hour to lure staff during intense labor shortage
Amazon announced Monday that it plans to add 150,000 seasonal jobs for the upcoming holidays in the U.S., as the e-commerce giant expects a Christmas shopping season characterized by high demand and supply shortages.
The announcement represents a 50 percent increase from last year, when Amazon brought on roughly 100,000 seasonal workers.
According to its last earnings report, Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the U.S after Walmart, with 950,000 employees nationwide.
At the end of 2020, it had 1.3 million full-time, part-time and temporary workers worldwide.
The hiring frenzy comes during a major U.S. labor shortage and increased union activity that's led it and other companies to increase wages in time for the crucial end-of-year shopping period.
In September, Amazon increased its average starting salary to more than $18 an hour.
Seasonal roles will include sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000 and, depending on shifts, an additional $3 per hour salary.
Amazon says its bringing on 150,000 seasonal workers for the holidays. Positions include sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000 and, depending on shifts, an additional $3 per hour
Amazon is also proposing free college tuition in some cases to to beef up its numbers, CNBC reported.
Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Illinois are among the states that will have the highest number of seasonal jobs, said Amazon, which is also investing in building additional warehouses.
The online giant has also started recruiting for 20,000 Christmas-season positions in the United Kingdom.
Department store chain Macy's also announced plans last month to hire about 76,000 full- and part-time workers during the holiday season.
Last month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (pictured) said the company was planning to hire 55,000 corporate and technology roles globally —almost as many as all of Facebook's work staff.
Target said it plans to take on 100,000 seasonal workers, while Walmart indicated it's looking to fill some 150,000 slots 'for the holidays and beyond.'
But Amazon has been on a hiring spree since the start of the pandemic, bringing on 500,000 employees in 2020 alone.
In September, new CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon is planning to hire 55,000 people for corporate and technology roles globally —almost as many as all of Facebook's work staff.
Jassy, who replaced Jeff Bezos as Amazon's top executive in July, told Reuters that the online giant needed more firepower to keep up with demand in retail, cloud computing and advertising, among other ventures.
He added that Project Kuiper, Amazon's $10 billion plan to boost broadband access with low-orbit satellites, would require a lot of new hires, too.
'There are so many jobs during the pandemic that have been displaced or have been altered, and there are so many people who are thinking about different and new jobs,' Jassy said, citing a PriceWaterhouseCooper survey indicating that 65 percent of workers wanted a new gig.
He said that reality made Amazon’s Career Day on September 15 ‘so timely and so useful,' he said.
The new hires would represent a 20 percent increase in Amazon's tech and corporate staff.
Amazon also plans to open several 30,000-square-foot brick-and-mortar department stores across the US, selling clothing, household items, electronics and other home goods, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.
The company is so eager to staff up across the board it’s stopped considering pot-smoking a deal-breaker.
Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Illinois are among the states that will have the highest number of seasonal jobs, said Amazon, which is also investing in building more warehouses
Beth Galetti, Senior VP of Human Resources, wrote in a blog post last month that the company has 'reinstated employment eligibility for former employees and applicants who were previously terminated or deferred during random or pre-employment marijuana screenings.'
In total, 43 states and the District of Columbia have varying degrees of legalization of cannabis.
Galletti said the changes were made for a number of reasons, including that pre-employment marijuana testing 'disproportionately impacts people of color and acts as a barrier to employment.’
In September, Amazon asked delivery partners not to screen potential drivers for marijuana usage to help overcome labor shortages.
Amazon will still screen for weed for those who apply for positions that are regulated by the Department of Transportation, it said.
Amazon's headquarters is in Washington State, which was among the first to legalize recreational use of the drug in 2012.
The company is also constructing a second headquarters in Virginia, which decriminalized marijuana via state legislature in 2020.
Amazon has previously touted an 'office-centric culture,' but later dialed back its vision and offered workers the opportunity to spend just three days a week at its offices in person starting next year.
Earlier this year, a failed attempt at unionizing by Amazon workers in Alabama put the company's taxing warehouse work and aggressive anti-union stance on display.
Asked how he might change Amazon's demanding workplace culture, Jassy claimed the e-tailer's heavy focus on customers and inventiveness set it up for improvements.
'Everybody at the company has the freedom - and really, the expectation - to critically look at how it can be better and then invent ways to make it better,' he said.
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