What slowdown? Amazon seeks to hire 33,000 people for corporate, tech roles

DC region doing better, but needs improvement on jobs

Better –– but still not good. That’s how one expert describes the current economic outlook in our region, even though at least one major company is looking to do a whole lot of hiring.

NEW YORK (AP) - Amazon is on a hiring spree.

In the latest sign of how it's prospering while others are faltering during the pandemic, Amazon said Wednesday it is seeking to bring aboard 33,000 people for corporate and tech roles in the next few months.

It's the largest number of job openings it's had at one time, and the Seattle-based online behemoth said the hiring is not related to the jobs it typically offers ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.

Amazon can afford to grow its workforce: It is one of the few companies that has thrived during the coronavirus outbreak. People have turned to it to order groceries, supplies and other items online, helping the company bring in record revenue and profits between April and June. That came even though it had to spend $4 billion on cleaning supplies and to pay workers overtime and bonuses.

Demand has been so high, Amazon has struggled to deliver items as fast as it normally does and had to hire 175,000 more people to help pack and ship orders in its warehouses. Walmart and Target have also seen sales soar during the pandemic.

But other retailers have had a rougher time. J.C. Penney, J.Crew and Brooks Brothers have all gone bankrupt. And Lord & Taylor, which has been in business for nearly 200 years, recently said it will be closing its stores for good. Companies across other industries have announced buyouts or layoffs, including Coca-Cola and American Airlines.

In August, the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.4% from 10.2% the month before, but hiring growth slowed, with the country adding 1.4 million jobs last month compared to 1.7 million in July.

Others are hiring, too. UPS said Wednesday that it plans to bring in 100,000 people to help it deliver packages during the busy holiday season, which is about the same amount of people it hired last year.

Amazon Career Day 2020

Amazon Vice President of Workforce Development, Ardine Williams, discusses the 2020 Amazon Career Day.

Amazon said its corporate and tech jobs, whose average pay is $150,000 a year, will be centered around Amazon’s offices across the country, including Denver, New York, Phoenix and its hometown of Seattle. The new hires will work from home at first, but the company said it does want employees to return to the office eventually.

Ardine Williams, Amazon's vice president of workforce development, said plans to build a second headquarters near Washington, D.C., are going as planned, despite the pandemic, with 1,000 workers already hired.

To fill the 33,000 jobs, Amazon said will hold an online career fair Sept. 16 to collect resumes and give people a chance talk to a recruiter. Those not interested in a job at Amazon can also get resume help, the company said.

Jane Oates, president of the nonprofit WorkingNation and a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor, said that Amazon is different from other companies in that it’s thinking about its future workforce. For example, it announced a program last year to retrain 100,000 of its workers for tech jobs by 2025.

“They’re not only looking for the jobs that need to be done today, they’re also looking at what’s next,” she said.

At an in-person Amazon career fair last year, about 17,000 people showed up and the company said it received more than 200,000 applications for 30,000 jobs.

In July, the company said its workforce topped 1 million worldwide for the first time, making it the second-biggest U.S.-based private employer behind Walmart Inc.