Amazon going nuts on seasonal hiring?

Amazon's seasonal army

As the busy holiday season gets underway (see above for Black Friday data), retailers have been hiring in preparation for all the sale-seeking shoppers.

The king of online retail, Amazon, requires the most help in meeting the holiday demand — hiring another 150,000 seasonal employees in the US this year. That recruitment spree is equivalent to hiring the entire workforces of retail rivals Macy’s and Burlington. It’s also roughly equivalent to the entire workforce of Disney, nearly 2x Nike’s and triple the 49,000 employed by Goldman Sachs.

Attracting that many workers in the current hot labor market is no mean feat, so to sweeten the deal Amazon is offering a $3,000 signing bonus and average starting pay at $18 an hour.

The original kings of Christmas retail, Walmart, are cutting back however, suggesting a potential split between online and physical stores. Indeed, Walmart is only adding 40,000 seasonal workers this year, far fewer than the 150,000 that they added in 2021.