Amazon to Hire 100,000 in U.S. and Canada -- Update
14 September 2020 - 9:40PM
Dow Jones News
By Ben Otto
Amazon.com Inc. plans to hire 100,000 additional employees in
the U.S. and Canada, continuing its hiring spree during a jump in
online shopping caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The e-commerce giant said Monday it would hire full- and
part-time positions at dozens of locations, with the new jobs
paying at least $15 an hour and including benefits and signing
bonuses of as much as $1,000 in some cities. Hiring for the jobs
has already begun.
The Seattle-based company also said it would open 100
operational buildings this month alone, including fulfillment
centers, delivery stations, sorting centers and other sites. That
will add to more than 75 others already opened this year in Canada
and the U.S., it said.
The outsize expansion comes after Amazon experienced a wave of
orders this year when coronavirus restrictions pushed millions more
people toward online shopping. Retailers like Walmart Inc. and
Target Corp. as well as e-commerce companies such as Instacart Inc.
also saw immense growth online and hired hundreds of thousands of
workers.
Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the U.S. behind
Walmart, added 175,000 warehouse workers in March and April,
125,000 of whom it intends to keep permanently. Last week, it
announced 33,000 vacancies for corporate and technology
positions.
That stands in stark contrast to other companies and industries
that are cutting tens of thousands of jobs. Amid a slump in
passenger demand, U.S. airlines shed about 50,000 jobs in the first
half of the year alone. Traditional retailers like J.C. Penney,
Neiman Marcus Group Inc., J.Crew Group Inc. and others have filed
for bankruptcy.
Amazon, which accounts for more than a third of online U.S.
sales, has been profitable even during the pandemic. The company
posted a record $88.9 billion in sales during its second quarter,
and profit doubled year-over-year to $5.2 billion.
In the same quarter, it also spent more than $9 billion in
capital projects. The company's nonretail segments, such as its
cloud computing and advertising businesses, continue to see fast
growth, creating further job opportunities.
Including temporary workers that the company describes as
seasonal, Amazon has more than one million employees world-wide.
Its total head count in the U.S. without seasonal employees exceeds
600,000, with more than 100,000 of those in the corporate
ranks.
Amid the rising sales, the company's shares are up almost 70%
this year. That has taken its market capitalization to around $1.6
trillion, behind only Apple.
Write to Ben Otto at ben.otto@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 14, 2020 07:25 ET (11:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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