Amazon and UPS announced plans this week to each fill 100,000 seasonal job openings at their companies as the shipping and e-commerce giants ramp up for the holiday shopping season.
In trying to fill the seasonal jobs, both companies are emphasizing the career opportunities that can grow from seasonal jobs.
Amazon, which plans to add 4,700 seasonal workers at its fulfillment centers across Tennessee, including centers in Chattanooga and Charleston, touted more than 35,000 promotions among its operations workers so far in 2020, many of whom started in seasonal positions. Some 30,000 employees have taken classes through the company’s Career Choice program for new careers in commercial trucking, IT security, nursing and aircraft maintenance.
Amazon’s 2020 seasonal hiring will be about half the 200,000 workers the company hired in anticipation of 2019’s holiday peak, but more in line with seasonal hiring levels from 2015-18. The company pays a minimum of $15 an hour to all employees.
The current holiday push follows a September drive to hire 100,000 permanent operations employees and the hiring of 175,000 temporary workers earlier this year to confront the pandemic-driven spike in demand. Some 70% of those seasonal jobs were converted to permanent positions.