Amazon joins the rush to recruit Christmas workers

E-commerce giant Amazon is the latest retailer to enter the battle to secure seasonal workers, launching a hiring blitz for 2,000 staff in the lead-up to Black Friday sales.

The company has opened applications for the positions at its logistics and fulfilment sites in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle and the Gold Coast, in a move that will further increase competition for seasonal workers that are already in shortage across the country.

Amazon’s Australian director of operations Mindy Espidio-Garcia said on Wednesday there were roles to suit candidates “whatever your personal or professional situation”.

Major retailers have flagged a shortage of seasonal workers as a major challenge for the sector this year, while Australia Post boss Paul Graham said it was one of the toughest years in memory for recruiting logistics staff. 

Earlier this month, drinks retailer Dan Murphy took the step of conducting on-the-spot interviews to recruit 2,200 staff, hoping to address the worker shorter crisis by making applications as easy as possible.

Sustained consumer spending has forced retailers to scramble to secure seasonal workers to deal with orders throughout the festive season. Mastercard’s Spending Pulse report for August, which tracks sales activity in the Mastercard payments network, shows spending was up 25.1 per cent compared to the same month last year.

Despite the robust market conditions, retailers have warned that the challenge of finding labour, combined with increased costs and supply chain issues,  could eat into their margins.

Amazon’s hiring spree in Australia comes despite the global retail giant putting the brakes on the rate at which it has been adding new staff overseas.

The company’s headcount fell by close to 100,000 in the June quarter, with the company telling investors that it had increased its hiring in the first months of this year as the Omicron COVID variant took hold, but has since adjusted its hiring levels and seen “attrition” of staff as the variant subsided.