Amazon Holiday ‘Deals’ Extend to Employment This Year

Amazon holiday deals: Tuesday morning, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) said the company expects to hire 70,000 full-time seasonal employees for the holidays. This represents a 40% increase over last year’s number, when the company made 50,000 seasonal hires.

Amazon is anticipating a busy holiday-shopping season. During last year’s holiday quarter, the company booked $21 billion in revenue. Now, Wall Street is forecasting that number to be 22% higher and jump to $26 billion this year.

The bright outlook on the future is thus reflected in the company’s hiring binge. It is also planning to hire 15,000 temporary workers in the U.K., more than half the employees it hired over 2012.

The vice president of Amazon’s worldwide operations and customer service, Dave Clark, stated that the company has already made 7,000 of US’s temporary employees full-time hires throughout this year. Now, once the holiday season is over, they expect to do the same.

“Each year, seasonal jobs lead to thousands of long-term, full-time roles in our sites — jobs that offer great pay, benefits starting on day one and the chance for employees to further their education through our Career Choice program,” Clark stated publicly. The company added that seasonal workers will earn around 6% less than full-time workers’ starting wages, while many of them will be offered a permanent position in the company as well.

The total holiday hires of 85,000 that Amazon has announced is planning to make surpasses greatly its rivals –Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) said it will hire only 55,000 seasonal workers. Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT) is expecting to give work to 70,000 workers, hiring 20% fewer employees than last year, stating it is doing so to give current ones more hours.

Shares of Amazon advanced 1.46% today to $317.49 during yesterday morning’s trading, near its all-time high.

 Disclosure: Pamela Gaviño holds no position in any stocks mentioned

 Recommended Reading:

Four Dates to Circle in October

Chinese e-Commerce Giant Alibaba IPO Could Be Biggest of 2014

Amazon Takes Aim at Apple’s iPad