This past Thursday, Amazon hosted “Amazon Jobs Day” in an effort to fill 50,000 job openings before the holiday. And while they didn’t hit their hiring goal, according to RetailDive, they still received a whopping 20,000 applications.
Offering highly competitive wages, “‘egalitarian benefits’ that are the same for warehouse associates and executives alike,” 20 weeks of paid maternity leave, and a robust training program, Amazon is staffing up their operation hubs at an astonishing rate, while the rest of the fulfillment industry is struggling to fill similar positions.
“Despite the talent shortage facing supply chains worldwide, Amazon has found a way to confront the problem head on, and job seekers noticed,” the story noted. In Baltimore, for instance, the lines for the job fair were “looping around the parking lots and within the the enormous warehouse.”
What’s more, Amazon isn’t requiring applicants to have a degree or any industry-specific background – qualifications that are hamstringing competitors. Instead, as company spokesperson Lauren Lynch said, they “want people who are leaders and have demonstrated success.”
So, to recap, Amazon potentially created about 286 Acosta Coal Mine’s worth of jobs. In six hours. On a Thursday in August. Which means that they also have the ability to create more jobs in one day than the president can in 200.
Does Amazon present a number of unique, Kafka-esque problems for the rest of the industry? Very much so. But at least in doing so, they’re providing good jobs to parts of the country that don’t always have them. And even if we all wind up serfs in Lord Bezos’ feudal kingdom, at least we’ll have retirement plans.
You can read more about it at RetailDive.
