The company’s effort to hire new full-time and part-time warehouse and transportation workers comes as it is planning to open 100 logistics facilities on top of the more than 250 that opened in, the earlier part of 2021. Some new recruits are expected to help Amazon roll out its long-awaited one-day delivery service for Prime members.
“The 125,000 (warehouse workers) is really to help us keep up with our growth,” said Dave Bozeman, vice president of Amazon Delivery Services, who added that only a minority of jobs were to address attrition. The company plans to fill in the roles as soon as possible but did not offer a timeline.
Additionally, the company is offering a signing bonus of $3,000 in some locations, triple what it offered four months ago, according to Bozeman.
Just last week, the company also revealed plans to plans to pay full college tuition for its U.S. front-line workers, which will bring the eCommerce giant’s education and skills training benefits total investment to $1.2 billion by 2025. U.S. hourly employees can start taking advantage of these benefits as soon as 90 days after employment.
The wage increments come at a time when retailers around the U.S. are struggling to fill positions, with fewer Americans filing for jobless claims and new job openings reaching a record high. This is pushing major retail players such as Walmart to increase wages and offer additional incentives.
“It’s a tight labor market, and we’ve seen some of that as the entire industry is seeing,” said Bozeman.
