Amazon To Employ 75,000 New Workers To Keep Up

E-commerce giant Amazon has revealed plans to employ about 75,000 new workers across Canada and the United States as demand increases due to the pandemic. The new employees will be stationed in warehouses and the transport unit.

According to the company, these jobs offer an average starting salary of $17/hour, plus a $100 bonus for new staff who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, some locations will have sign-up bonuses of up to $1,000 to attract applications. 

The company is hiring beyond the American continent, as it announced plans to employ 10,000 people in the UK as well in line with its plans to open more warehouses in the north and south of England.

The UK hires will be beyond warehouses and transportation, as it plans to create corporate roles in Cambridge, Edinburgh, London, and Manchester. 

This employment exercise will take the number of Amazon staff in the UK to 55,000, and a number of Amazon staff in the entire world to over a million. All of this is to keep up with the online shopping habit that the coronavirus pandemic instilled in the majority of the population.

Last year was the most profitable year for the retail company, as a huge number of people found reliance on its services. Sales surged 44% year-over-year to $108.5 billion and shares

 its annual revenue went up by 38% to go to $386 billion, a year-on-year increase of over $100 billion. 

In the first quarter of this year, the revenue was up to $108.52 billion, beating analyst's expectations of $104.47 billion.

While the company will get to evade some operational costs, thanks to remote work and Covid-19 guidelines, it has revealed plans to increase the salary of US employees, which is set to cost over a billion dollars.

Amazon has been under fire lately, as employees have exposed the low salaries, and unsatisfactory working conditions they're being subjected to - including the inability to take toilet breaks as a result of so much work pressure.

Recently, workers of the company in different countries, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, etc went on strikes to protest the poor working conditions.

Amazon has, however, insisted that it ensures workers' health and safety.