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Breaking down Amazon’s pandemic hiring spree

The e-comm giant accelerated its hiring through the pandemic and is now the second-largest employer in the US.
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Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

Retailer after retailer has gone on a hiring spree this year. But, is it just us, or does it feel like Amazon makes a new push every other week?

Last Tuesday, the e-comm giant said it will add 125,000 warehouse and transportation workers, including delivery, across the US (at an average starting wage of $18/per hour). That’s in addition to hiring 40,000+ new corporate roles.

That was just this month. (And apparently more than 1 million people applied for its career-day event.)

A look back: The pandemic-led surge in online shopping set Amazon on an accelerated hiring spree, and starting in July 2020, the company was bringing on about 2,800 employees a day, mostly in its warehouses.

  • By October 2020, Amazon’s workforce topped 1 million worldwide; ~500,000 new jobs were added last year alone.
  • 2021 began with even fiercer hiring goals, and the company in April said it would invest $1 billion to boost wages by up to $3/hour for 500,000+ of its employees. (Amazon’s minimum wage has been $15/hour for all US workers since 2018.)
  • In the second quarter of 2021, Amazon said it employed an additional 64,000 people.
  • With almost 1 million workers in the US, Amazon is the second-largest employer in the country behind Walmart, which employs 1.6 million people.
  • One in every 169 American workers now works at Amazon.

Zoom out: The fight for labor remains tight—especially ahead of the holiday shopping season—with more job openings than unemployed persons and workers less willing to settle for low-paid jobs with limited benefits.

While Amazon recently announced it would cover tuition costs for its 750,000 hourly employees (education benefits appear to be retail’s new incentive), the New York Times reported in June that the e-comm company is struggling with high turnover as it—and its workers—try to keep up with supercharged growth.—JS

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

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