Anyone who’s ever worked in retail knows that hiring tends to ramp up ahead of what is hoped—at least by those who own the retail stores in question—to be a big season of shopping and spending. E-retailing giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is no exception and let slip about its plans for holiday hiring.
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The big news was that Amazon would indeed be hiring, and substantially, ahead of the holiday shopping season, which will start up in earnest in a couple weeks. In some cases, based on the Christmas decorations already out, some stores have already started. Amazon plans to hire an extra quarter-million employees in a hiring blitz. Those hires will be across the United States, and there’s no word as yet on how those hires will be distributed.
But that’s not all; Amazon will also be bringing on all those new hires at a significantly upgraded pay scale. Amazon is poised to put an extra $1.3 billion into paying employees, pushing average pay up to $20.50 per hour. That’s a hike of better than 50% over the last five years’ pay rates, and some workers might manage as much as $28 per hour. Given what we’ve recently seen in labor relations, with strikes taking place all over and the overall labor force still a fairly tight market, Amazon’s response might be necessary to get the workers it needs to cope with the huge new influx of holiday orders it will, hopefully, receive.
Is Amazon Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Analysts, meanwhile, are mostly on board. With 39 Buy ratings against one Hold, Amazon stock is considered a Strong Buy by analyst consensus. Further, with an average price target of $175.63, Amazon stock offers its investors 28.12% upside potential.
