Amazon plans to recruit 250000 logistics staff to cope with the holiday shopping spree

Thank you CTOnews.com netizen Mr. Aviation for the clue delivery! On Tuesday, online retail giant Amazon announced plans to hire 250,000 logistics workers, apparently looking forward to the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Amazon said in its blog that the new hires will include full-time, part-time and seasonal employees, working in different locations, earning between $17 and $28 an hour (currently about 124 to 204 yuan), and some employees will receive signing bonuses ranging from $1000 to $3000.

Amazon also said it would raise the average wage for logistics workers to about $20.50 an hour (currently about 150 yuan) as the company struggles to recruit and retain employees amid labor shortages.

Amazon typically adds hiring in the fall to ensure it has enough people for the critical holiday shopping season and announces raises and hiring plans ahead of time. Last year, Amazon said it would add 150,000 employees, and in 2019, they promised to hire 200,000 seasonal employees.

Amazon's announcement is notable because, according to estimates from Challenger,Gray & Christmas, the employment consultancy, retail will add 410,000 jobs in the fourth quarter of this year, the lowest level since 2008.

Amazon is hiring more seasonal employees in part because it continues to benefit from the trend of consumers turning to online shopping. According to Insider Intelligence, e-commerce sales in the U.S. are expected to soar 9.3 percent this year to $1.14 trillion, outpacing overall retail spending growth.

Other retailers have also recently announced their hiring plans for the holiday shopping season. Target, for example, announced plans to hire nearly 100,000 seasonal employees, roughly the same as last year. Macy's hiring target is 38,000, down 3000 from 2022.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service announced it would hire 10,000 seasonal workers, down from 28,000 last year, as it added more full-time workers.

Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the United States, behind Walmart. As of the end of June, the company had 1.46 million employees worldwide, most of whom work in Amazon's sprawling logistics division, mainly in warehouses where items are stored and packaged.