Amazon hiring 250,000 workers for upcoming holiday season

Amazon is gearing up for the holidays with a plan to hire 250,000 works across its U.S. fulfillment and delivery network. 

The online commerce giant is hiring full-time, part-time, and seasonal roles, with positions being posted weekly through December. Amazon touted that regular full- and part-time employees earn an average of $23 per hour with benefits, and seasonal employees can earn an average wage of over $19 per hour. 

The company said it would invest over $1 billion into additional pay and benefits for its fulfillment and transportation employees, bringing the average total compensation to more than $30 per hour when you include the value of their elected benefits. 

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“We find that our seasonal roles are really popular—often filling up within minutes of being posted—because they meet different needs for so many different people,” Amazon said in a blog post. 

Aside from pay, the company said its seasonal roles offer flexible schedules. Meanwhile, workers who stay on for regular full-time roles, the opportunities expand further, with access to a range of benefits including health care and education programs such as Career Choice, where the company will pre-pay tuition for workers to earn college degrees or certificates.  

Amazon is only one of a handful of companies making public commitments to holiday staffing. Following a summer of subdued hiring, seasonal retail hiring is expected to fall to its lowest point since the recession-hit season of 2009, according to a recent report from job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

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The firm projects retailers may add under 500,000 positions in the last three months of 2025, which would be the smallest seasonal gain in 16 years. 

“Seasonal employers are facing a confluence of factors this year: tariffs loom, inflationary pressures linger, and many companies continue to rely on automation and permanent staff instead of large waves of seasonal hires,” Andy Challenger, Senior Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said. 

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Although there is a chance we could “see a late hiring push if holiday sales surprise to the upside, the cautious pace of announcements so far suggests that companies are not betting on a big seasonal surge,” Challenger said, adding that “this year may be more about doing more with less.”

Aside from Amazon, Bath & Body Works plans to hire 32,000 workers this holiday season, which includes 2,000 roles in its distribution centers. 

Spirit Halloween plans to add 50,000 workers and Kohl’s announced that it was hiring seasonal workers, though it didn’t give a number. 

Meanwhile, Target posted about its seasonal plans, but did not make any major hiring announcement. Insteas, the company said it would offer hours to existing workers and tap into a network of 43,000 “OnDemand” team members, in addition to hiring new team members.