AMZN Amazon.com Inc

By Laura Stevens 

Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday it plans to add 120,000 seasonal employees to help fill holiday orders at its warehouses, nearly doubling that segment of its workforce and topping hiring plans at other major retailers.

Still, it is the same number of temporary workers the online retailer brought on last year, reflecting hiring already done this year toward meeting its goal of adding 100,000 full-time and 30,000 part-time workers through mid-2018. Amazon plans to retain some of the workers, which would help it keep building toward that number.

Supply-chain experts say hiring this year will be more competitive due to near-record-low unemployment, requiring retailers and logistics companies to offer higher wages and other perks.

Amazon got an early start. In August -- right before seasonal hiring traditionally starts -- the company held a job fair online and in a dozen cities to hire 50,000 new permanent employees in a day. It received about 20,000 applications the day of, and has since filled all the jobs, a spokeswoman said.

Amazon said it employs more than 125,000 full-time workers at more than 75 fulfillment warehouses across the U.S. -- a number likely to be updated when the company reports third-quarter earnings in the coming weeks. Already, Amazon has warned it will be a quarter with heavy spending, in part due to o pening new warehouses.

United Parcel Service Inc. has said it would hire 95,000 workers, also on par with last year, aiming to increase operational efficiency with the same number of workers even as the number of packages it ships grows. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to give its in-store employees more hours, but also add 5,000 extra seasonal workers at its e-commerce business.

Macy's Inc. plans to increase seasonal hires at its warehouses by 20% to 18,000, although overall seasonal hiring at the retailer is down slightly.

Write to Laura Stevens at laura.stevens@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 12, 2017 11:58 ET (15:58 GMT)

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