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The
world's largest online retailer will begin telling 125,000
warehouse employees in June that they can keep their roles
longer-term. The remaining 50,000 workers it has brought on will
stay on seasonal contracts that last up to 11 months, a company
spokeswoman said.
The decision is a sign that Amazon's sales have increased
sufficiently to justify an expanded workforce for order
fulfillment, even as government lockdowns ease and rivals open
their retail stores for pickup.
Amazon started the hiring spree in March with a blog post
appealing to workers laid off by restaurants and other shuttered
businesses, promising employment "until things return to normal
and their past employer is able to bring them back."
Seattle-based Amazon did not disclose how much it was spending
to make the positions permanent and whether that cost would be
in addition to the $4 billion it has forecast for virus-related
expenses.
The permanent roles come with benefits that seasonal workers
lack, such as employer-offered health insurance and retirement
plans.
Some Amazon staff, unions and elected officials have said the
company has put employees' health at risk by keeping nearly all
its warehouses operational during the pandemic. At least 800
U.S.-based workers have tested positive for the highly
contagious virus, according to figures compiled by one employee,
which Amazon has not commented on.
The company has increased cleaning, added social distancing
measures and offered face masks, fever checks and virus tests in
response.
Amazon said it had 840,400 full and part-time staff at the end
of last quarter while it still was in the process of hiring. It
has not reported an updated number.
(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Edwina
Gibbs)
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