On October 27, Amazon announced plans to hire an additional 100,000 employees across its operations in North America in preparation for holiday shopping.

According to the company’s press release, the e-commerce giant is looking for full-time and part-time jobs that span across all skill levels. The new employees will help pick, pack and ship customer orders across Amazon’s network of warehouses in the US and Canada. Amazon says these jobs will offer a path to a longer-term career, or simply provide flexibility and extra income during the holiday season.

This isn’t Amazon’s first hiring boost this year. Since March, the company has hired 175,000 temporary employees to cope with the high demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon later said it would keep 70 percent of those employees permanently. 

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In 2019, Amazon announced it would bring on 200,000 temporary workers for the holiday season. The seasonal hiring news comes as consumers start buzzing about holiday shopping. Deloitte predicted last month that e-commerce sales from November to January will increase 25 percent to 35 percent this year compared to last.

  Amazon said in a statement that it is confident in its ability to serve customers this holiday season. The statement also revealed that this year, Amazon has spent billions adding new last mile and shipping capacity, and are setting up more options in distribution centers closer to customers to enhance their shopping experience, which is possible because of the integrated and sophisticated network Amazon has been building for more than 20 years.

But Amazon’s in-house delivery service may struggle to handle all the additional shipments this holiday season. Satish Jindel, the president of Shipmatrix, a software provider that works with parcel shippers, said it would be a crisis for Amazon if customers ignore the warning to order early.

The media interviewed 10 Amazon warehouse workers last week about working during Prime Day and the holiday season. Some employees are concerned about their ability to follow social distance guidelines. If they fail to do so, they are at risk of reprimands. Others said they were stressed about the amount of extra work that might come in the future.