With the holiday season approaching, Amazon has decided to hire 100,000 seasonal workers, including a few hundreds at its recently opened Joliet fulfillment center.
Amazon’s demand for workforce in Joliet center will be fulfilled by Integrity Staffing, which provides temporary workers for Amazon. Based on their position and experience, workers will receive a minimal of $12 per hour. “We are going to be hiring in the next several weeks for hundreds of seasonal jobs at our Joliet fulfillment center,” Amazon spokeswoman Nina Lindsey said Tuesday, according to Chicago Tribune.
The requirement doesn’t come as a surprise, as it happens every year
A report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that the number of temporary jobs will pretty much remain the same. “It used to be that the bulk of holiday hires would be in customer-facing positions on the sales floor and behind the cash register. These extra workers would also help pick up the slack in the backroom, helping to receive and stock increased deliveries.
Now, as more and more shopping is completed online, the holiday hiring is shifting away from stores and into the warehouses.”, said CEO John Challenger, quoted by the same source.
More employees needed, compared to 2014
With nearly 100,000 ready to sign for a seasonal job, Amazon is increasing its seasonal hiring by 25 percent over last year. To understand the online retailer’s capacities, this year Wal-Mart is hiring 60,000 holiday employees, Target about 70,000 and Macy’s 85,000. Last year, more than 90% of the seasonal employees managed to get full-time jobs at Amazon.
Amazon has more than 90,000 full-time employees at its more than 50 fulfillment centers and 20 sorting facilities in the U.S. Its 500,000-square-foot Joliet fulfillment center is the online retail giant’s first in Illinois, having previously relied on warehouses in Indiana and Wisconsin to serve Chicago and avoid state sales tax, says Chicago Tribune.
