The FINANCIAL — Amazon announced it will host its 2020 Career Day on Wednesday, September 16. As a part of the nationwide virtual event, Amazon – the largest job creator in the U.S. over the last decade – will give attendees the opportunity to learn about the 33,000 corporate and tech jobs currently available across the country, and the thousands of additional hourly positions in the company’s operations network to be announced soon. Amazon will also mobilize 1,000 of its recruiters to provide 20,000 career coaching sessions to attendees in a single day. Career Day is designed to support all job seekers, regardless of their level of experience, professional field, or background – or whether they are looking for a job at Amazon or another company.
Amazon said anyone can take part in its upcoming jobs event by registering and booking an appointment online with an Amazon recruiter, Beyond the individual coaching sessions, Amazon said its event would include panel discussions and interviews with career experts and company executives. Starting Wednesday, people can register for software code review workshops and breakout sessions to learn about jobs in Amazon’s logistics network, it said. On average, the jobs will offer a total annual compensation of $150,000, including salary and stock awards, an Amazon spokesperson told – CBS reported.
Last year, 17,000 job seekers attended Amazon Career Day events in six U.S. cities – and more than 200,000 people applied for jobs in the week leading up to the event. Building on that success, Amazon is taking the event virtual and opening Amazon Career Day 2020 to everyone, regardless of their location.
Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President Human Resources at Amazon, said that COVID-19 continues to affect millions of people across the country and people are eager for the opportunity to get back to work, they’ve created more in the U.S over the past decade than any other company and they are continuing to hire people from all backgrounds and at all skill levels. “We are glad to be able to mobilize more than 1,000 experienced recruiters and HR professionals to help job seekers across the country learn about opportunities at Amazon and elsewhere.” – she added.
Half of the Americans currently looking for a new job (53%) have been forced to do so because of COVID-19, according to a new Morning Consult survey on job-seeker insights commissioned by Amazon. A majority of those job seekers are trying to transition into fields such as healthcare and technology, sectors that Americans expect to continue to grow and hire. Research shows how the pandemic has prompted 61 percent of job seekers to look for a job in a different industry than they currently work, while 36 percent feel their current job does not utilize their main skills or training.
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, USA Today wrote.
With more than 875,000 employees worldwide, Amazon has been consistently recognized on LinkedIn’s Top Companies, currently ranks #2 in the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies, and was selected by Fast Company as one of the Best Workplaces for Innovators. Amazon has more than 600,000 full- and part-time employees in the U.S., across more than 40 states and 250 different counties, two headquarters, 18 Tech Hubs, more than 150 fulfillment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations, and more than two dozen Amazon Go, 4 Star and Amazon Books retail stores. Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $350 billion in the U.S., including infrastructure and employee compensation.
It is interesting to note that Amazon’s top reviewers in the UK appear to have engaged in fraud, leaving thousands of five-star ratings in exchange for money or free products. The company took down 20,000 product reviews following an investigation by the Financial Times. Justin Fryer, the number one Amazon reviewer in the UK, left a five-star rating once every four hours on average in August, according to the FT’s analysis. Many of these reviews were for products from random Chinese companies. Fryer then seems to have resold the products on eBay. Read more.
