America is heading toward crisis mode, and Jeff Bezos and Amazon ($AMZN) are stepping up with a FDR-level plan to put laid-off and furloughed people back to work, with the pledge to hire 100,000 - or more than double its current job posting level.
Amazon has plans to hire plenty of engineers, managers and marketing pros - but one of its biggest needs will be in warehouses and coordinating inventory at a time of frenzied ordering. Across the company, job postings are up 23% - and it sounds like, that figure will continue to grow, as Amazon also offers higher pay in the pandemic.
At Amazon, its "Buying Planning In-Stock Management" category includes a vast number of roles like "Vendor Managers" dedicated at individual verticals within its shopping platform, like Pets (which would help it scale a competitive offering against recent challengers like Chewy). Within the Buying, Planning, In-Stock management category, job postings are near all-time highs, and up 16% since 2020 began.
As Americans look to stock up on anything from home workout gear to cleaning goods to protective masks, it's also adding more warehouse associates - more than 100 new job postings in this segment so far in 2020, although it's worth noting that Amazon can also accept multiple applications for the same role in the same city through its jobs page, and this may not fully reflect the breadth of upcoming hiring for staff that worh within the warehouses. One of Amazon's long-term challenges will be mitigating Coronavirus diagnoses and responses within its warehouses, which it has already encountered in other continents. In the US, it has recently bolstered its health and safety team.
Our chart above tracks roles including Transportation Managers within Amazon, and reflects an increase of postings by 41% to more than 2,000 so far in 2020.
Finally, evidence that Amazon isn't just in need of bodies - it's also in need of tech experts. The company's Systems, Quality and Engineering job postings are up 23% in 2020, and are at multi-year highs (more than 1,200), as it attempts to fend off third-party price gougers out to drive up the price of anything from hand sanitizer to toilet paper.
But that's at 40,000-ish job postings - and if Amazon is to pursue 100,000 hires in the Coronavirus recovery, it's likely some of these categories will see big shifts in the weeks ahead.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
Further Reading:
- Walgreens is ramping up hiring and getting more attention on social as Americans hunker down
- Clorox captivates on social media as US focuses on cleaning products
- Teladoc hiring, app data and social media attention soar in Coronavirus crisis