Amazon Adds 100,000 Workers For Holidays

24/7 Wall St. looked at the 10 retailer which have added the most temporary workers for the holidays. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is in first place, which is not surprising. It is the only retailer which is growing at double digits, and in the holiday quarter, that number is not expected to slow.

It is difficult to overstate Amazon.com’s success in the retail industry. Amazon.com reported revenue of $48 billion in 2011. In the most recent 12-months performance period, the retailer’s revenue reached just above $100 billion. During the same period, by contrast, Target’s revenue went from $69.9 billion to $73.6 billion. Amazon.com’s most obvious advantage over other retailers is that it does not have to maintain stores. However, it has huge fulfillment and sorting centers that get particularly busy during the holiday. Most of the temporary employees will work in such centers. Amazon.com’s other huge advantage is that it can bundle online retail with other services. The most highly promoted bundled service is Amazon.com’s Prime membership program. For $99 a year, customers get free shipping on many items, video streaming of tens of thousands of movies and television shows, and unlimited storage of photos.

READ MORE: Retailers Hiring Most For The Holidays

Amazon posted a 23% increase in revenue in its last reported quarter, to $25.4 billion. It expects massively better numbers for the current period:

Fourth Quarter 2015 Guidance

Net sales are expected to be between $33.50 billion and $36.75 billion, or to grow between 14% and 25% compared with fourth quarter 2014.
Operating income is expected to be between $80 million and $1.28 billion, compared to $591 million in fourth quarter 2014.
This guidance includes approximately $620 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, and it assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, investments, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded and that there are no further revisions to stock-based compensation estimates.

And, according to the 24/7 Wall St analysis, Amazon’s seasonal hiring this year is much higher than last:

Fourth Quarter 2015 Guidance

Amazon.com
> 2015 seasonal hires: 100,000
> 2014 seasonal hires: 80,000
> Total employees: 154,100
> U.S. stores: N/A

To establish which retailers will add the most jobs for the 2015 holiday, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the announced holiday hires from top retailers based on revenue in the Retail 100. Because their businesses are so closely related to retail, we also examined seasonal job additions at Fedex and UPS. Financial data was obtained from financial documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when available.