Amazon is going on another hiring spree.
The company on Wednesday said it plans to hire 55,000 people around the world, with about 40,000 of those roles in the US. The positions range from tech jobs and corporate roles to warehouse work packing and shipping orders for the online shopping giant.
While other companies laid off workers during the pandemic, Amazon’s workforce ballooned as more people stayed home and ordered toilet paper and groceries from the shopping site. Last year alone, it hired 500,000 people.
Amazon currently employs more than 1.3 million worldwide, making it the second-largest private US employer after retail rival Walmart, which is also ramping up hiring.
The company said on Wednesday that it planned to hire 20,000 people at its Walmart and Sam’s Club warehouses to fill online orders to drive lifts.
Like Walmart before it, Amazon continues to face pressure on how it treats its workers. A union push at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama failed earlier this year, but other unions and advocates still have the company in its sights.
The Teamsters, one of the country’s largest unions, said in June that it would step up its efforts to unionise Amazon workers, saying that the company exploits employees by paying them low wages, pushes them to work at fast speeds and offers no job security.
Amazon said Wednesday the large number of job openings is due to its growing businesses, including its cloud computing unit and its project to send satellites into space to beam internet service to earth.
The Seattle-based company said the open US jobs are spread across 220 Amazon locations around the country.
