Amazon Adding 55K Jobs in Global Hiring Push

After growing its workforce to more than 1.3 million people in 2020, Amazon.com is planning to hire another 55,000 employees globally in the coming months, the company announced earlier this week. This is the first major hiring push since new CEO Andy Jassy took the reins from Jeff Bezos in July. It comes ahead of the company's annual Career Day, which is slated for Sept. 15. Most of the new jobs will be in corporate and technology roles, which Jassy told Reuters are needed to help the company keep pace with demand in retail, advertising and cloud computing — business units that all got a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Total Retail's Take: In the midst of one of the tightest labor markets in memory, Amazon has announced its aggressive hiring plan. The company is looking for a mix of corporate, technology and hourly staff to fill positions across its diversified portfolio of businesses. It's perhaps not surprising that Amazon's announcement came on the same day its chief rival, Walmart, said it would be adding 20,000 workers for its distribution and fulfillment centers. The two rivals are aggressively staffing up to meet rising consumer demand for digital and, more specifically in the case of Walmart, omnichannel shopping experiences.