Amazon Doubles Holiday Hiring to 200,000 Temporary Workers

Spencer Soper, Bloomberg News

An order picker collects customer delivery orders at an Amazon.com Inc. fulfilment center during the online retailer's Prime Day sales promotion day in Koblenz, Germany, on Monday, July 15, 2019. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. will hire 200,000 seasonal workers in the U.S. to fetch products in its warehouses, pack boxes and make deliveries, doubling the number of temporary workers it hired last year and signaling the world’s biggest online retailer expects a strong fourth quarter.

In an emailed statement, Amazon attributed the hiring growth to the increasing breadth of its logistics operations, which include stowing, packing and sorting products and shipping them to customers’ homes from facilities specifically designed for e-commerce, rather than sending goods to retail stores.

The Seattle-based company also said it promoted 19,000 employees in its logistics operations to supervisory roles this year. The Associated Press earlier reported Amazon’s hiring plans. The company said it had 750,000 full- and part-time workers globally as of Sept 30.

U.S. shoppers are expected to spend a record $143.7 billion online in November and December this year, up 14.1% from a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics. E-commerce giants like Amazon are expected to capture more of the increased spending than small businesses, according to Adobe.

To contact the reporter on this story: Spencer Soper in Seattle at ssoper@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Robin Ajello