In an attempt to cope with the increased volume of online commerce in the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, Amazon.com (AMZN +1.43%) plans to hire an additional 100,000 workers. Those new employees will be utilized for the company's considerable warehouse and delivery operations.
A report in The Wall Street Journal quoted a memo the newspaper obtained, in which Amazon's senior vice president of operations Dave Clark wrote that "[w]e are seeing a significant increase in demand, which means our labor needs are unprecedented for this time of year."
Image source: Amazon.com
The article did not state which Amazon locations would absorb the expanded workforce, and to what degree. Those new personnel will benefit from the company's temporary salary raises for warehouse and delivery workers; in the U.S. this bump will be $2 per hour. Similar hikes are to be enacted for such employees in various locales outside of this country.
Amazon, a perennial top stock in the retail sector, is a frequent go-to option for an everwidening range of goods. According to data from eMarketer cited by the Journal, the company is responsible for 39% of all online shopping in this country.
Still, the rapid spread of the coronavirus caught most of the world unprepared, not least in the U.S. Since many bricks-and-mortar businesses have been at least provisionally closed, demand for online commerce has sharply increased. Because of this sudden spike, Amazon has struggled in particular to deliver its grocery orders to customers in a timely manner.
Amazon's stock declined by over 5% on Monday.
