Amazon continues jobs spree with 100,000 additional roles
Amazon has said it is intending to recruit another 100,000 new jobs in North America this year, marking its fourth hiring effort in 2020 alone.
The e-commerce giant has announced plans to hire a total of 208,000 new employees this year, after revealing 33,000 jobs for headquarters roles earlier this month and 175,000 new operations jobs as lockdown began.
Amazon has been hoping to appeal those who may have laid off by other businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic, while also bolstering its own operations as online shopping booms.
The new roles announced today will spread across the US and Canada, including at the 100 new warehouse and logistics locations Amazon is opening this month.
As of the end of June, Amazon’s total permanent workforce in North America had reached 876,800 people in either full or part-time work.
Amazon’s vice president of global customer fulfilment Alicia Boler Davis said the tech giant was also working towards automation in its newest sites, to help cope with demand after reporting a record profit last quarter.
“We will continue to deploy technology where appropriate, starting from a safety perspective” and “where we can improve our overall operation,” Boler Davis told Reuters in an interview.
The news follows Amazon’s announcement last week that it intends to recruit a total of 10,000 new roles in the UK this year, with an additional 20,000 temporary jobs forecast to help over the seasonal period.
Amazon paid out less than £300m in direct taxes to HMRC last year, despite raking in an extra £3bn in revenue.