The e-commerce giant Amazon announced the hiring of 75,000 people in the US and Canada in order to meet the demand for orders that they have been experiencing since the coronavirus pandemic emerged.
The job offer also includes a $ 100 bonus if the person chosen to join work is already vaccinated against Covid-19 in any of the vaccine modalities that are distributed in the US.
The jobs offered are related to package delivery and warehouse handling positions at Amazon’s distribution centers. The company’s statement states that on average new workers will earn $17 an hour, in a nation that is struggling to establish a minimum wage of $15 an hour.
Amazon offers full-time employees benefits that include health insurance, paid parental leave, and access to several company-funded skill enhancement opportunities, including Amazon’s groundbreaking Career Choice Program, which pays up to 95% of the enrollment for courses in high demand fields.
The hiring spree comes as the company gears up for next month’s Prime Day, its popular sales event that has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year for Amazon.
In addition to the $ 100 bonus for new hires who are vaccinated, Amazon said it will also offer a separate $ 1,000 login bonus to attract new workers in many parts of the country.
Most of the jobs are concentrated in 14 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin.
Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc, with more than 1.2 million employees worldwide, is the second-largest private employer in the US, after retailer Walmart.
Last year alone, Amazon hired 500,000 people to keep up with the surge in orders during the pandemic, as more people stayed home and shopped online.
In the 2021 quarter, Amazon continues to benefit from the pandemic shopping habits of Americans, recording a record profit of 8.11 billion, more than triple its revenue from the first quarter in 2020.