US online giant Amazon on Thursday announced that it plans to hire 120,000 seasonal workers to help handle an expected crush of holiday shopping.
The Seattle-based internet retail colossus takes such measures every year, but its recruitment goal for this Christmas season represent a 20 percent jump from 2015.
Amazon turned 14,000 of those temporary positions from last year into regular full-time jobs, and hoped to increase that number this time around, according to vice president of global customer fulfillment Mike Roth.
“This is our favorite time of year,” Roth said.
“We’re excited to bring on more than 120,000 seasonal employees this year to support growing customer demand.”
Amazon is not the only retailer to beef up its forces during the year-end holiday shopping season, but seemed more optimistic about demand than some traditional players who plan to keep seasonal hiring unchanged or even lower than last year.
Macy’s is hiring 83,000 holiday workers as compared to 85,000 last season. Target increased the number of holiday delivery and shipping related jobs by 1,000 to a total of 7,500, but hiring in retail shops will remain the same as last year — 70,000 positions.
Shipping service UPS plans to take on 95,000 seasonal workers to meet holiday demands for deliveries.
The US National Retail Federation estimated that spending by US shoppers during the holiday months of November and December could reach $655.8 billion in a 3.6 percent increase year-over-year.
The NRF expected online sales to surge seven to 10 percent to as much as $117 billion.
The research firm eMarketer is projecting a stronger 17 percent jump in online holiday retail sales.