With 1.34 million employees, including 950,000 in the United States, Amazon is the second-largest American employer behind the Walmart retail chain (2.3 million). The company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 is now opening a warehouse a day in the country, 100 in September alone.
There are now ten million jobs to be filled nationwide against the 7.7 million unemployed. This is a situation that has not been seen for twenty years.
By the end of 2021, it is expected to exceed one and a half million employees. Twice as many in two years. Not to mention the 55,000 people it is looking to hire in positions such as IT, film, and satellite, nor even the seasonal workers it hires through the holiday season.
On Tuesday, September 14th, it announced that it needed 125,000 additional workers for its American warehouses.
While the company’s expansion is in full swing, third-quarter profit and sales fell well short of Wall Street projections. It was a setback for Amazon, which sent its stock down about three percent in midday trading on Friday, October 29th.
Apple (AAPL) also said Thursday that chip shortages and manufacturing disruptions prevented it from making $6 billion in revenue in the latest quarter.
Amazon said supply chain chokepoints and inflation in raw material, workforce, and transportation costs reduced profits in its latest quarter. These persistent issues also will cost the company an estimated $4 billion extra this quarter, resulting in lower benefits during the forthcoming holiday season, the company said.