Both retail giants are adding tens of thousands of hires to their payrolls after the US Labor Department submitted a disappointing jobs report.
Last Wednesday, Amazon announced it would be adding 55,000 jobs globally after having reached a workforce of more than 1.3 million people last year. 40,000 will be added in the US, and the remaining jobs in other countries, especially in Europe and Asia. This is the first hiring push after Andy Jassy took over Amazon CEO from Jeff Bezos in July. This announcement comes days before the company’s September 15 career day. Most of the jobs will be based in the corporate and technology teams, which already have an estimated workforce of 275,000 worldwide.
On the other hand, Walmart, one of Amazon’s retail and logistics industry competitors, looks to add 20,000 jobs to the most sought-after roles during the pandemic: the supply chain positions. This includes drivers, managers, order fillers, freight handlers, and technicians. Warehouse workers are currently in high demand, as the worker shortage during the pandemic and the online sales boom have left companies desperate for these kinds of workers. The company’s average salary for a supply chain worker is $20 per hour.
According to Amazon’s statement, most of the added jobs will be new positions instead of just a move to fill existing ones. This could mean the tech giant is going to hire more workers than expected. This move to hire a more extensive workforce comes amid the failure of Amazon warehouse workers’ push to unionize and general criticism of the treatment of these workers from the company.
Walmart offers a good salary plus the benefit of college tuition payment and excellent benefits to lure workers into new jobs. However, experts estimate that during the shortage, it’ll remain hard for Amazon and Walmart to fill these positions despite the offerings of better benefits.
At the time of writing, both companies’ stocks were performing well. With increases of over 0.4% each, Walmart stock was at $149,25, and Amazon remained above the $3400 mark.
Do you think Amazon and Google will achieve the hiring of so many workers?
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