Amazon said it will hire 250,000 workers this holiday shopping season and raise the average wage for logistics workers to about $20.50 an hour in an effort to recruit and retain employees amid a labor shortage.
Hiring will include full-time, part-time and seasonal workers, with hourly wages ranging from $17 to $28 depending on location, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. Some new employees will be eligible for bonuses ranging from $1,000 to $3,000.
The Seattle-based company typically ramps up hiring in the fall to ensure it has enough workers during the critical holiday shopping season, starting with announcing pay raises and staffing plans. Amazon said last year it would hire 150,000 workers. In 2019, the company committed to hiring 200,000 seasonal workers.
Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the United States, behind Walmart Inc. As of the end of June, the company employed 1.46 million people worldwide. Most of these people work in the company’s vast logistics department, primarily in warehouses where items are stored and packaged.
Amazon has been plagued by labor unrest in recent years. The company is challenging an election in which more than 8,000 workers at its Staten Island, New York, warehouse won the right to union representation. Similar efforts at other warehouses have failed, but organizing continues.
At 12:23 noon in New York, Amazon’s stock price fell nearly 3%.
